


Bowties and Bugs

by Tsuki_Amano



Series: 365 Stucky Shots [29]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Avengers, Fake Marriage, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Superhusbands, secret agent AU, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:09:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6865243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsuki_Amano/pseuds/Tsuki_Amano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his line of work, Steve thinks he's seen everything. After all, it's hard to surprise a spy. So when he gets a call from one very disgruntled James Barnes who's handcuffed to a tombstone, it's safe to say they've set a precedent.</p><p>Or the one where Steve and Bucky are both spies working for SHIELD and get called in for a rescue mission. Which should be fine because Steve most definitely does not have an earth-shattering crush on Bucky Barnes and his perfect hair.<br/>Except he does. And they're playing the role of happily married husbands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s been a long day.

He’d just got back from a week long Intel collection mission in Thailand, and gone straight to a debrief session with Fury. The debrief had started off as a fairly civilised meeting where he was presenting his findings, but had quickly devolved into a shit-storm when one of the junior agents had passed a none-too-kind comment about some of the local women within proximity of Natasha.

Needless to say, the debrief session had ended with him physically separating three agents who were on the verge of disembowelling each other.

After that fiasco, he’d had a private debrief session with Coulson, who still unnerved him for some reason. He’d finished, raced down the corridor to catch the elevator only to find himself stuck with Barnes.

For all thirty floors down.

Agent James Barnes was a good agent. He was quick-witted, intelligent and strong and was so charming that he could easily fall into any undercover operation SHIELD assigned him to. He’s friendly enough and seems to get along with almost everyone in the facility. There’s a rumour that went around about how he was initially a part of HYDRA, although it was an unwilling part. Back when the rumour first started, there had been talks of mind-wiping and torture.

Those whispers died down pretty quick.

Steve’s not sure how much of that had to do with the fact that Natasha, who’s apparently best friends with Barnes, was terrifying when she twirled a pocket knife.

There was only one problem that Steve had with Barnes.

It was a small thing really, not something to report to the higher ups, in fact the only person he had ever brought it up with was his best friend Sam.

The thing was, for whatever reason, Barnes hated him.

When the lift door closes behind him, Steve freezes and wishes he could break open the doors and run out. ( _He could but Fury would kill him for damaging SHIELD property_ ). Barnes fixes him with a glare and Steve gulps audibly, because wasn’t there also a rumour that he was a master assassin who had killed thirty men with a hairpin?

Forcing himself to unfreeze, he smiles weakly at the scowling man and moves to stand at the other side of the elevator. He greets him and tries to strike up a conversation.

“How’s your day been going?” he asks tentatively.

If anything, his scowl deepens and he bites out, “Terribly.”

“O...Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” He replies inwardly cursing himself. Why did he even bother asking? He knows Barnes hates him.

The rest of the trip down is spent in awkward silence and when they reach the ground floor he races out the second that the elevator door opens. “Have a nice night!” he shoots out and hightails it out of there before he ends up as a carpet rug.

By the time he catches the subway back to his tiny apartment, he’s too late to make it for dinner with Sam ( _Really man, this is the third time this week, what kind of a job do you have?_ ) and he’s aching and sore from where a junior agent had managed to accidentally land a punch.

Settling for a quick fix dinner of instant ramen and some tea, he leaves the dishes to wash up the next morning and curls up in his bed, falling into a restless sleep.

He really needs to consider alternative employment options.

Halfway through an excellent dream about Barton’s dog and him playing Frisbee, Lucky opens his mouth to bark at Steve to throw the Frisbee. Instead of a bark, however, Steve’s confused when he hears a shrill ringing noise. The ground beneath his feet begins to vibrate and the ringing gets louder and louder, and subconsciously he realises that it sounds familiar.

He jerks upright in bed and grabs his phone from where it’s been perched on the pillow next to him. Blearily, he squints at the clock on his phone and groans, it’s 3 in the morning. Who in their right mind would call him at 3 in the morning? He doesn’t recognise the number either, which strikes him as odd, because very few people have his personal number.

“Hello?” he asks, wincing at how raw his throat sounds.

A vaguely recognizable voice responds, “Rogers.”

It takes almost a full minute ( _which he’ll later attribute to the fact that he was asleep_ ) before it clicks who the voice belongs to.

“Barnes?”

He gets a grunt of affirmation from the other side, confirming his identification.

“It’s 3 o’clock in the morning! What… Why…How’d you even have my number?” he asks, running a hand through his hair. His head is spinning in circles. There’s a voice in his head (which sounds a lot like Sam), which is cackling and telling him that this sounds a lot like the dream he had last week. _(Ok, so he may have left out the part where he had a teeny tiny crush on James, because he was gone the moment the man had fixed his blue eyes on him_ ).

“Natasha gave it to me a few months ago.” He sounds impatient and there are a million and one questions he wants to ask, but he also realises that something is potentially wrong. In their line of business, you rarely call someone in the middle of the night to bond. It also clicks that Barnes has been whispering the whole time, which prompts Steve’s next question.

“Is everything ok?”

“I might need some assistance.”                                         

“What happened?” he’s already halfway into his jeans and has one shoe on.

“How close do you live to the Alastair cemetery?”

About twenty minutes later, Steve tiptoes into the cemetery, his gun concealed behind the flap of a jacket. He’s wearing his ‘Civilian Camouflage’ outfit as Sam puts it. He tugs his baseball cap lower on his face and shifts the thick-framed glasses around. Barnes had said that he was somewhere near the back entrance of the graveyard, and he had added, almost as an afterthought that Steve needed to bring his lock-picking kit.

He’s trying not to get freaked out ( _he’s a world-class spy damnit, he shouldn’t get afraid of such stupid things_ ) but at the same time, there’s something about a cemetery after dark that makes the hair at the back of his neck rise. He wants to switch on the flashlight at the back of his phone but he knows that the less attention he draws to himself, the safer he’ll be.

A movement near the corner of his vision startles him and he lets out a most un-spy-like squeak.

Only to find Barnes crouched near a tombstone, smirking at him.

“Didn’t know you could hit those notes Rogers.”

He huffs out an angry breath and moves closer to him, when he notices the glint of metal on his left arm.

“What the…”

“Not a word Rogers.”

“Are you handcuffed to the tombstone?”

“There was an incident.”

Steve knows better than to ask, so he just picks the lock. Barnes stands up and takes a step before his leg gives out beneath him. Steve’s quick to catch him before he hits the ground.

“I’m fine,” Bucky says, although the grimace of pain that paints itself across his face says otherwise. “One of the guys who cuffed me got a few swipes in.”

“You should have said you were injured, and immobilised,” Steve protests.

“I’m fine, you should see the other guy’s face.” Barnes smiles at him and Steve feels his face heat up. He ducks his head and keeps moving as quickly as he can, trying to avoid stumbling over his own feet.  
“Do we need to apprehend these guys?”

“What kind of amateur do you take me for?” Barnes says, grinning. He pulls out a flash drive from his pocket and waves it at Steve, before replacing it. “I got what I came for and those morons got a few hits in. As far as I’m concerned, that’s mission accomplished.”

They’re halfway down the street before Steve thinks to ask, “How far do you live from here?”

The other man shifts uneasily, “I’m uh, on the other side of town. It’s not a big deal, if you help me get a taxi I’ll live.”

“You do realise that you’re bleeding and that it’s the middle of the night don’t you?”

“And what would you suggest?” he asks.

“I live about ten minutes from here. I’ve got a couch, it’s safer and cheaper than you taking a taxi all the way back. There’s a first aid box in there too, we could treat your wounds before they get infected.”

“That’s really not necessary.”

“No, it’s not. But it’s also a smarter move than what you’re planning. Look… I know you hate me, but at the very least, we work together and this is the least I could do for a colleague.”

Barnes thinks about it for a second, “Alright, lead the way.”

As they make their way slowly to his apartment, Barnes suddenly adds, “You’re wrong you know.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t hate you, or even dislike you. I’m just not very good at talking to people. I know it comes off as being rude, but except for a few people I really do like, I just pretend to be polite to everyone. It’s easier than terrifying everyone.”

“You’re not terrifying.” Steve feebly protests.

When Barnes raises an eyebrow at him, he flushes again and curses his pale skin.

Once they’re back in his apartment, he helps Barnes to his sofa and grabs him a glass of water. He’s glad he’d cleaned up before he’d left to Thailand and there aren’t piles of take-out containers lying in every corner of his apartment.

Helping Barnes dress his injury is an experience. He’s right, the wound is mostly superficial, but having his bare leg so close to Steve is a trial of its own. There are a lot of old scars, silvery white and jagged, which he doesn’t ask about. As far as he’s concerned, that’s none of his business. He notices the way that Barnes looks at the set of spare clothes that he’d brought out. He’s touched the long-sleeved shirt gently, a look of relief on his face for a few seconds before yanking his hand backed as though he’d been burned.

Steve’s noticed that he prefers to wear long-sleeved tops, even when he’s on undercover ops. He’s not sure if there’s a reason for that or if it’s just personal preference

“Well, I’m going to turn in,” he says, as he snaps the first aid box closed. The exhaustion of the day is beginning to catch up with him and he can feel his eyelids drooping. “I’ll give you some privacy to change. If you need anything, the fridge is open to you, although I would check the expiry date before you eat anything. I’m uh, not the best at grocery shopping. Bathroom’s down the hall to the right and my room’s right across from that if you need anything.”

“Thanks.” Barnes says, and Steve has to admit, he looks exhausted.

“Don’t mention it. Night Barnes.”

“Bucky.”

Steve freezes, unsure if he heard correctly or he’s starting to hallucinate from lack of sleep.

“Bless you?” he says.                                                                            

“That’s my name. I think after tonight we’ve sort of skipped over the awkward last name stage. Everyone who I want to talk to calls me Bucky.”

“Ok? Uh, good night Bucky. I’ll uh, see you in the morning?”

Barnes… _Bucky_ …waves him off and when Steve falls face-down on his bed, he’s left wondering what exactly happened.

He pulls himself out of bed the next morning by 9, ignoring every urge that he has to sleep in some more. Among other things, his stomach is protesting the lack of a decent meal and that alone prompts him to stumble towards the kitchen, to whip up a quick breakfast. A cursory glance of his fridge has him gleefully pulling out a carton of eggs, some bread, cheese and some sausages. He’s midway through frying them up when he hears Bucky shuffling towards him.

“Morning Bucky!” he calls out, waving his spatula at him.

Bucky lets out what can be best described as a hiss and drops his head to the table. “You’re one of those annoying morning people aren’t you?”

Instead of deigning that with a reply, he just flips the sausages over and hums. “I’m going to assume you’re a coffee drinker then.”

There’s another groan from the Bucky shaped heap on the table and Steve shakes his head ruefully. Putting some coffee in the pot (he may not drink the stuff but he always had some for Sam when he came around), he turns back to breakfast.

“Do you want your eggs any particular way?” he calls over his shoulder.

“Anything’s fine.” Bucky replies, “Thanks for this by the way.”

“Don’t mention it. It wasn’t exactly like I was going to leave you there was I?”

The coffee maker dings and Steve pours the steaming liquid into a cup. “Do you want milk and sugar?”

“Ordinarily yes, but today no. I just want the caffeine.”

“That’s not very healthy,” Steve says, his brow furrowing in concern.

“Honestly pal, don’t worry about it. I have a debriefing session with Fury in a couple of hours and I need to be awake for it.”

He piles cheesy omelettes, sausages and toast onto two plates and slides one over to Bucky, before handing him his coffee and placing a cup of tea down for himself.

He’s going to steadfastly ignore the way his heart skips a beat at how happy Bucky looks over the breakfast plate in front of him.

When Bucky groans appreciatively as he takes a bite of his food though, Steve gulps down another mouthful of tea, hiding the redness of his cheeks.

They make small talk over breakfast, and before he knows it, both their plates are empty. Bucky refuses Steve’s attempts to clear the table and stubbornly insists on washing the dishes, _because it was the least he could do Rogers don’t make me fight you over this._ Shrugging his shoulders helplessly, he gives in to Bucky’s demand. Thirty seconds after he’s left the room, Steve’s phone starts ringing again, although this time, it’s not an unknown number.

“Hey Sam,” he says cheerfully.

“Morning Spangles.” Sam replies, and Sam is a beast who will never let that go because of that stupid photo of him as a kid. “This is just me calling to check up on you and make sure you’re still alive.”

“I’m fine, honestly. Just had breakfast. I’m probably going to head out again soon.”                                                                                                                                 

There’s silence from the other end of the line before Sam asks, “Are you washing dishes?”

“No, why?”

“I can hear the water running. Steve Rogers do you have someone over in your flat? Is that why you couldn’t meet me yesterday? It’s about time man, I was getting worried that you’d spend your life pining over that Barnes guy you work with.”

Swallowing nervously, he replies, “About that…”

“You’re kidding me. You’re actually kidding me. Is that Barnes?”

“It’s not what you think! His car broke down near here and he needed a place to stay. That’s it.”

Sam huffs, unimpressed, “Well that’s not nearly as impressive then.” There’s some noise in the background and Steve can hear another voice for a few minutes. “Riley’s calling me down for breakfast. But you keep me updated alright?”

“I promise I’m not going to elope without letting you know Sam.” He replies drily.

Hanging up, he picks up his tea mug which is now empty and heads over to the kitchen where Bucky’s just about finished washing the dishes. He washes his mug out as Bucky leans on the adjacent counter-top and looks at some of the stuff on his fridge. He’s got a few mismatched pictures drawn by Sam’s niece on there, a couple of photos of him, Sam and Riley and one with him and his mom.

“That’s my friend, Sam.” He says by way of explanation. There’s no need for him to explain but he can’t help but bring it up. “He works down at the VA. And that’s his boyfriend Riley. They’re a couple of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.”

There’s something stormy in Bucky’s eyes that Steve just can’t put a finger on. He decides not to push and Bucky doesn’t say anything else.

“You know, you didn’t need to escort me to headquarters,” Bucky says, amused. They’re taking the subway to SHIELD and Steve had insisted on going with Bucky.

“I had to fill out the reports for the last mission.”

Well, he can at least pretend that he isn’t lying completely.

He does end up at his desk about an hour later, poring over paperwork, trying to put down his Intel details as concisely as possible. But he can’t concentrate because after every few seconds, his mind becomes fuzzy and he thinks about this morning, when Bucky had wandered into the kitchen, looking for all the world like a disgruntled kitten. Resting his head on his hand, he reminisces about Bucky’s messy bed-head and sleepy eyes.

He’s snapped out of his reverie by someone knocking at his door.

Flailing, ( _really, he needs to get his shit together. He’s supposed to be a spy_ ) he knocks over a paperweight on his table and winces, as he sees Natasha standing at his door, arms crossed and one delicate eyebrow raised.

“You alright there Steve?” she asks, amusement lacing her voice.                       

“Just thinking about something.” He waffles, but he knows it’s useless. Natasha Romanov is one of the best spies that SHIELD will ever see, she knows everything about everyone, even the things that people don’t know they know.

“Don’t think too hard, you might hurt yourself. Although I can’t say that whatever you were daydreaming about didn’t look pleasant. Or is it whoever?” She laughs as his face heats up but doesn’t push any further.

“Fury wants to see you in Mission Room 1 in ten minutes. From the sound of it, he’s looking to place you sometime soon.”

“What? I just got back yesterday!” He doesn’t mean for it to come out so whiny, but he’s exhausted and wasn’t there a mandatory down-time period between ops? ( _He really should have read that stupid handbook Coulson has passed out during his induction training period_ ).

To her credit, Natasha looks sympathetic. She places her hand on his shoulder as they walk down the corridor to the room. “Something’s definitely going on,” she confides, “Fury and Coulson have been keeping things quiet but I think it has to do with HYDRA.” She looks annoyed that she doesn’t know more, but before they can discuss anything else, they’re outside the control room and Coulson steps out, mission folder in hand.

“Ah Agent Romanov. Thank you for bringing Agent Rogers down here.” It’s a clear dismissal if he’s ever heard one and Steve barely has a chance to nod a good-bye to Natasha before he’s ushered inside. The door shuts behind him and he glances around the room, eyes widening at the occupants.

Fury stands at the head of the table, next to a glowing laptop. He’s scowling but that’s pretty standard for him and Steve would be more worried if he didn’t look like he wanted to decapitate someone.

However, seated at the table is Bucky, who, unlike this morning when he’d seemed relaxed and almost soft, is holding himself tensely, like he can’t get himself to breathe right. His fists are clenched and his shoulders are stiff and his knee bobs up and down with nervous energy.

Looking up at Steve, he offers him a small smile which doesn’t quite meet his eyes and Steve’s stomach clenches as he wonders what exactly is going on.

* * *

Come say hi! I'm on [tumblr](http://everydayindian.tumblr.com/)

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Rogers, you’ve met Stark and Banner?” Fury says as a way of introduction when Steve’s seated next to Bucky.

“Briefly.” He admits. Steve had been working simpler jobs, preferring Intel missions to the other SHIELD ops. His mother always said that he reminded her of Bambi, because he had never really adjusted to his adult body. Given his gawkiness, he’d always felt that he was more suited to intelligence gathering and the occasional recon mission. That was where he shone.

Tony Stark was head of the design and robotics division and Bruce Banner was head of the science and research branch. They were **_way_** above his pay-grade. The only reason he’d even briefly met them was thanks to Natasha, who seemed to know them very well. He’d been having lunch with her when the pair had shown up and she’d introduced him to them.

He couldn’t even pretend he wasn’t shell-shocked and star-struck. Because that was _Tony Stark_ , everyone in SHIELD had heard of him. He’d sputtered out some variation of his name and flushed so red that Banner had actually asked him if he needed to go to the infirmary. Natasha had patted him on the head as he tried to will the ground to open up and swallow him.

Glancing at the man sitting next to him, he realises that Bucky seems to know them a lot better. He’d heard that Bucky was one of SHIELD’s best operatives but he had always thought it was just an exaggeration. Now he thought that there might be more to that statement, and he couldn’t help but feel out of depth.

Coulson takes over, “Stark and Banner were both involved in a high-priority operation for SHIELD. I’m sure you’re aware of some of our current…initiatives….against HYDRA. Recently we received information that there was a potential HYDRA operation within close proximity of an inhabited town, which as I’m sure you’ll realise is somewhat unusual and doesn’t fit their usual M.O.”

He nodded, he’d filed a part of that report himself. HYDRA has been touted as the rotten branch that fell from the SHIELD tree. They’re not really encouraged to discuss it, but among some of the people in the Intel department, they’ve formed a few theories of their own. From what information they’d gathered, it looked like HYDRA had started out with a few members of SHIELD, who were unhappy with the way things were being done. They’d branched out by themselves but had grown to misuse their power and knowledge and now SHIELD was working tirelessly to stop them. Although, if what they’d discovered was anything to go by, their efforts had a lot more than altruism fuelling them.

There were whispers that whoever had founded HYDRA was from very high up on the SHIELD ladder and that there were a lot of secrets and classified information that could be potentially leaked.

Whatever it was, HYDRA was bad business.

“Well,” Coulson continues, “We were quite confused by their sudden change in tactic. They’ve seemed to avoid densely populated areas till now. We sent a couple of operatives in for what was supposed to be a routine tactical and recon mission.”

He cuts off and exchanges a look with Fury.

“Except it soon became clear that wasn’t the case. From the outset, it became evident that there was something unusual about this situation that we couldn’t quite put our finger on. Our agents’ information showed hints of top level HYDRA members in the area. This quickly became a Level 1 mission. The agents were extracted and Stark and Banner were sent in as part of an undercover operation.”

“The area is a fairly quaint suburban community, surrounded by dense forests and bounded by a river. There didn’t seem to be any reason for HYDRA to be centring themselves there. However they were and Stark and Banner set about finding out the reason behind it. They were able to uncover a few pieces of information as well as confirm our suspicions that some of the top level, if not _the_ top level, members of HYDRA were involved in this particular base for some reason.”

“They’d been involved in this case for the better part of two months and had seemed to integrate almost seamlessly into this situation, when something happened.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “Something?”

“Agent Rogers,” Coulson continues delicately, smiling at him in a way that made his stomach freeze, “You understand that the information we’re discussing here is extremely confidential and mere knowledge of it puts yourself at risk?”

“I’m aware of that yes.”

“You see, a week ago, we lost all contact with Agent Banner. Agent Stark sent us a coded message about it but didn’t send us anymore information because he was too afraid that HYDRA had infiltrated their communications devices. There is a house relatively close by to where Stark and Banner were set up, which is unoccupied. Agent Barnes will be leaving tomorrow afternoon to see if we can retrieve any information. We made a mistake by not scoping out the situation entirely, thinking we could accommodate this deficiency with two of our most skilled agents. Unfortunately, in our rush to make sure we could get the data before HYDRA vanished, we ended up in this most unfortunate mess.”

“We don’t plan on making the same mistake more than once Agent Rogers. We’d like you to accompany Barnes for this mission. What we require is someone who specialises in Intel missions, who’d be able to recover and extract data for us and who’s been involved in a minimal number of field missions. We’re trying to avoid HYDRA recognizing our operatives as far as possible.”

Coulson slides a case folder over to him and he swallows thickly. He’s done barely any undercover ops and most of them were extremely mundane. This was something completely out of his league. But how did he refuse the Director of SHIELD?

Seemingly sensing his consternation, Fury adds in, “Agent Rogers, we wouldn’t be approaching you if we didn’t believe that you were fit for this mission.”

It’s not much, but having the Director’s confidence in him does help. He closes his hand over the file.

“Excellent” says Coulson. “Tomorrow morning, you and Agent Barnes will be deployed at 800 hours to the drop point. All the details have been taken care of. You and Agent Barnes will need to coordinate a few minor details now, so I would strongly recommend you stay here.”

“Uh… wouldn’t I need to pack for tomorrow? Or get my passport and money and give notice to my landlord?” Steve asks nervously. He’s never been given such short notice about a case before.

“As I said, all the fine details have been taken care of. I’ll see you in a while, have a good day agents.”

Fury and Coulson excuse themselves, leaving Steve sitting next to Bucky with his mouth open.

“Close your mouth,” Bucky says, “You’ll catch flies.”

With shaking hands, Steve fumbles with his file. Bucky eyes him curiously, “You’re really nervous aren’t you?”

“Well, yes. Yes I am. I’ve got barely any idea what I’m heading into and we’re going in tomorrow. I work for Intel, and the benefit of that is normally, we have a lot more information to work with.”

Grinning at him, the other man replies, “Welcome to field work Rogers.”

As an afterthought he adds, “Considering the fact you seem you know little to nothing about what’s happening, I suppose I should let you know. This is a suburban neighbourhood. Given that we didn’t want to draw extra attention to ourselves, the logic was that two single bachelors shacking up would cause undue amounts of interest.”

“Wait, Bucky…what exactly are you saying?”

In place of a verbal response, Bucky just holds out a golden band to Steve and points at an identical one on his ring finger.

It takes about two hours, but the pair finally manage to flesh out a believable cover story for themselves. (Once Steve manages to wrap his head around the fact that they’re going to pretend to be married, _because what even_. They joked about this in the department.)

He’s Steven Kilkenny, which he had decided on after thinking of his ma’s Irish roots. The last name was fairly common so that it would avoid suspicion and was unrelated to his current name as far as possible. Bucky had decided to go with James Gregg, shrugging and throwing the name out there.

Steve would play the role of an illustrator, finally putting his unfinished fine arts degree to some use. It gave him an excuse to work from home and to continually use a computer, tablet or some form of technology, which meant that he could extract data from almost any situation without it looking suspicious. As per their story, he’d met Bucky, a vet who’d come back from the war during a gallery screening of some of his work.

Bucky was recovering from PTSD and as per their story, was undergoing physical therapy, both of which Steve had convinced him to seek help for. He would search for a small job when they arrived, hopefully something that would allow him contact with the townspeople, but small enough that he could assist Steve when needed.

They’d both agreed to work the relationship angle however they felt comfortable. There was no point pre-planning too much until they figured out the way the town worked. Bucky’s filled him in on snippets of his family life. He’s got three sisters, but he’s closest to Rebecca who’d gotten married two years ago, just before they’d formally gotten together. He’s still not comfortable bringing people home to meet his family, because he’s still not comfortable going home. His mom and dad are nice enough but his dad’s not too thrilled about the fact he’s gay. He’s not entirely sure if he wants children, he might in the future but he’s still adjusting to civilian life.

In return Steve fills him in on small pieces of his life. His dad died when he was barely a year old (well, he didn’t but Bucky didn’t need to know that yet), his mom raised him on her own. She worked as a nurse, and kept the job till she was much older. Couple of years ago when he was in college, she’d got hit by a virus that had left her weak and hospitalised. She’s still there, she never really recovered and on good days, she recognises him. He was a scrawny kid with a boatload of illnesses that made him none too popular. It’s only when he’s in college that a kindly doctor takes interest in him and helps him chart out a plan which sees him finally bulking up a little. He definitely wants kids, a small house and a dog if he can help it.

“You know, this isn’t really the best career for that kind of life,” Bucky murmurs when he hears that.

“I don’t plan to do this forever,” he says. “SHIELD, they recruited me when I accidentally hacked a very important company’s private server. I dropped out of college when Ma got sick, we didn’t have a lot of money to begin with and we needed to put everything in to looking after her. Most of my pay goes into her health right now, but I’ve been saving up a little every month. One day, I want to leave this all behind and start a new life.”

He flushes as he finishes, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble.”

Bucky tips his head back and Steve’s caught by the curve of his neck. “Don’t worry about it pal, I think it’s sweet. Speaking of sweet, we need couple-y nicknames for each other don’t we?”

“If you call me ‘sweetness’ or something, I will end you.”

“Babe?”

“ _No._ ”

“Peaches, sugar, honey?”

“Absolutely not to all of those.”

“Sugarplum, honey bunches, sweet cheeks?”

“You actual jerk.” He squirms uncomfortably as Bucky cackles.

“Actually… that might work. You call me jerk, and I’m going to call you punk. It seems more genuine.”

They’re almost done and packing up, getting ready to head over to the cab that will take them over to the airport, when he’s struck by something.

“Hey Bucky…” he trails off, there’s no way to phrase it without sounding offensive, but he has to know. The one rule of Intel is to be as prepared as possible.

“There were these rumours… of you, before you worked for SHIELD, working for HYDRA. I don’t believe it for a second, but I need to know, is there a chance of you being recognised by them?”

Pausing, Bucky takes a few extra seconds to put away some papers and push his chair back into place. “I guess what they say about Intel is true, you guys do know a lot. I did work for HYDRA once, but it wasn’t because I wanted to. Coulson’s already talked to me about this, there isn’t any chance of anyone recognising me. I wore a mask all the time in HYDRA and only my handler saw me without it. And he’s dead now. But that means I have the best chance of infiltrating them because I know how they work.”

He smiles at Steve, his eyes soft and opens the door for him with an exaggerated flourish so the other man knows that Bucky isn’t mad at him.

Bucky holds his hand as they walk through the airport and plays the part of a doting husband. In the plane, he falls asleep using Steve’s shoulder as a pillow and hugs his arm while nuzzling into his shoulder. He stammers embarrassedly when the amused stewardess tells him what a cute couple they make.

“Don’t wake him up, just call me if he’s hungry when he wakes up.”

Thanking her, he awkwardly opens his in-flight meal and pokes at the food. He doesn’t really taste what he’s eating, because his mind is miles away. He’d barely had time to leave Sam a voice message explaining that he got called out last minute. And then there’s his mother, who’s all alone in the hospice. Sam will visit her, he knows that, but somehow it’s not the same. It’s times like this when he really hates his job.

Stabbing viciously at a piece of broccoli, he stills when Bucky grumbles under his breath.

Once they’ve landed, Bucky grabs his hand again, and keeps Steve close. He might appear relaxed, but Steve can see the calculated way he moves. His ice-blue eyes casually scan the airport and make sure there’s no threat in the vicinity. And in his own way, Steve knows Bucky’s just looking out for him. It doesn’t stop him from smiling a bit whenever Bucky does something like that.

At the luggage carousel, Bucky takes over and grabs their bags, but hands one to Steve, which he appreciates. He’s not going overboard to try and smother him.

“There’s a car parked outside, the keys are in my bag. As far as possible, we need to pretend we don’t know Tony. There’s a large possibility that his house has been bugged, but ours was set up yesterday and swept by a team from the electronics department. We’re to set up as soon as possible and Tony will be over either today evening or tomorrow, as a ‘friendly neighbour’.”

The house is gorgeous, a two-floored quaint structure with a kitchen, living room and ‘work area’ downstairs. Upstairs is their bedroom (and oh no, he didn’t realise they’d be sharing a bed. He feels like a teenager with out of control hormones again), a bathroom and their ‘guest bedroom’ which is actually their workspace. It’s been set up with a workstation with a high power processor, a few smaller, less powerful (but only marginally so) computing devices, a printer and fax machine. They’ve even got a small garden space and a post-box.

He’s unfairly enamoured by the house, which is stupid because it’s only for the mission.

Bucky’s much less taken up by it and is already unpacking his bag when Steve comes into the bedroom. “Most of our stuff is set up already, and we’ve got basic groceries too, so we should be set up.” Noticing his furrowed eyebrow, he asks, “Everything alright?”

“I think we should head out to the supermarket in the evening. It’s a good way to introduce ourselves and to get to know the locals without it being suspicious. We’ve just moved in, being too prepared will be odd. If we try too hard not to stand out, we’ll stick out like sore thumbs.”

“That’s good planning punk,” he pulls out a pocket knife and slides it under the mattress, “You should get some rest first. You barely got any sleep during the flight here. I’m going to check in with Coulson and see if there’s any new information that’s popped up.”

He claps his hand on Steve’s shoulder and strides out.

Bucky’s efficient, he thinks, almost scarily so. In the short span of time that they’ve been here, he’s unpacked everything that had been in the bags SHIELD had sent with them and had made quick work of scanning the perimeter. He sits down tiredly on the bed and unzips his own bag, pulling out his clothes and placing them away. It takes him more time than it takes Bucky and by the time he’s done, he’s exhausted, his eyes drooping.

He barely manages to stow his luggage underneath the bed before he drops onto their bed, kicking off his shoes and falls asleep.

When he wakes up, his head is groggy and he feels fuzzy. The sun’s set outside and the lamp beside the table is switched on, casting a soft glow around the room. Blearily, he fumbles around, getting tangled in the sheets he didn’t remember covering himself in. A strong hand helps him untangle himself as he tries to sit up.

Bucky’s propped up in bed next to him, although he’s not under the covers. He’s changed into a pair of black track pants and a forest green soft sleep shirt, his hair pulled up into a messy bun. There’s a tablet on his lap and his legs are outstretched in front of him.

“Did you know, you drool in your sleep?” he smirks at Steve, before it slips into a warm smile, “Looks like you were exhausted pal. It’s after 10, you slept most of the day away.”

At the sight of the mask of guilt that slips over Steve’s face, he hastens to say, “Hey, no, it’s ok. Coulson told us to meet with Tony before we form any plan of action. He approves of your idea of blending in with the locals by the way, was very impressed. Tony’s going to drop by in the afternoon, so that gives us plenty of time to head out in the morning and get food.”

“Any news about the HYDRA agents rumoured to be floating about?”

“Bits and pieces. There’s nothing concrete and a lot of Tony’s messages that he sent had to be fragmented because there was always a chance we weren’t the only ones receiving his data. Tomorrow, I’ll brief you on who exactly we’re looking for. I figure you haven’t really seen all the people that we’re at risk of running into, which is a problem.”

“Do I have enough clearance for that?”

“You do now.”

He allows himself the luxury of a stretch, missing the way Bucky goes still next to him as he arches his back.

“Well, if we’re not needed, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Don’t you want anything to eat?” Bucky asks.

“Not really, I’m too exhausted to think about food. Did you eat?”

“I whipped up instant noodles, I’m not the best cook in the world.” He finishes defensively as he catches the look on Steve’s face.

“Neither am I, but even I can do more than that. I guess we know who’s in charge of cooking at the very least.” He stifles a yawn and rubs his eyes.

“Go back to sleep punk, we’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Alright jerk, don’t stay up too late. You need all the beauty sleep you can get.” His eyes slip shut and he falls back asleep leaving a very amused Bucky next to him. Shaking his head, he skims through the article open in front of him, switches off the tablet and turns off the light before sliding down in bed next to Steve and falling into an uneasy sleep.

 

* * *

I pretend to have my life together [here!](everydayindian.tumblr.com) Feel free to drop by and say hi!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got to throw in more of the characters back-stories and give vague hints about where I'm going with this. Also, my favorite go-to spy movie is Get Smart, which is probably not a good thing.


	3. Chapter 3

A stray beam of sunlight filtering through the drawn curtains pulls him into consciousness. He shuts his eyes for a few more minutes before turning over in bed, eyes landing on Bucky, who lays stretched out beside him, casually flipping through a document from the case file. His eyes move up from the paper and the corners crinkle as he notes Steve looking at him ( _and oh God, he didn’t know people’s eyes did that when they smiled outside of the movies. Someone please save his soul_ ).

“I turned off your alarm,” Bucky says softly, “You looked like you could use all the sleep possible.”

“I appreciate it,” Steve replies, content to lie there in his post-sleep warmth. The room’s peaceful for a few more minutes, with only the occasional sound of Bucky turning a page, before Steve reluctantly pulls himself out from his blanket cocoon, hissing when his feet touch the cold floor.

“Thought you were a morning person,” said Bucky, looking amused as Steve almost pouts at him.

“I’ve had a long couple of weeks,” he grumbles, filling Bucky in on his last Intel mission when he’s prompted. The response isn’t what he expected, Bucky looks furious.

“You didn’t have **_any_** downtime? No wonder you were so tired yesterday. Jesus pal, I have half a mind to call up Fury and…”

He cuts Bucky off before it gets out of hand, “Bucky, it’s ok. While I’m touched by your concern, you and I both know how important this is. Besides, I got a good night’s sleep, I’ll be fine.” Stretching and letting out a satisfied groan when he feels a comfortable pull in his arms and shoulders, he turns around to Bucky only to find him staring back with something unreadable in his eyes.

“Uh… everything ok there Bucky?” he asks hesitantly.

Shaking his head slightly, the other man replies, “Lost in thought, don’t bother about it.”

Shrugging, Steve continues, “I’m going down to make breakfast, are pancakes ok with you?”

Judging by the way his eyes light up, Steve takes that as a yes.

Half an hour later finds him by the stove flipping blueberry pancakes onto a plate while wearing an apron which says ‘Kiss the Cook’. ( _Someone in SHIELD had a terrible sense of humour_ ). To the side, there’s a bowl of chopped fruits and his own tea sits steaming away in a mug on the table. Bucky’s sat at the dining table, from where he can see straight into the kitchen and carry on a conversation. He sips at his coffee while reading the newspaper and occasionally reading out articles or funny snippets that catch his eye.

Midway through his recitation of the recent sordid affairs of the celebrities, the doorbell rings. Bucky’s shoulders stiffen for a second before he places the paper down and nods at Steve, heading over to the front door.

As it turns out, it isn’t Tony.

It’s the elderly couple from next door who’s brought, of all things, a home-baked apple pie for the pair.

Janice and Albert Eidowner, as the couple introduce themselves, have been living in their house for the past few decades and have been married for longer. They’re both retired though Janice likes to help out at the farmer’s market when she can. She heads in to the kitchen to chat with Steve while Albert sits down at the table to talk to Bucky, leaning his wooden cane against the chair.

“It’s so lovely to have you boys here,” Janice smiles at Steve, as he pours out another ladleful of pancake batter. “We’re a small town, we rarely get new people, but really I do hope you feel welcome here.”

“Thank you Mrs. Eidowner,” he begins, before she cuts him off and corrects him, telling him to call her Janice, “It’s awfully kind for you to come down here.”

“Not at all, it’s the least we could do. Moving’s always a dreadful thing, although you boys seem to be handling yourselves well. So tell me,” she leans in with a positively wicked smile on her face, “How’d you two meet?”

He’s glad they rehearsed this before although he still flushes as he recounts their tale to her. ( _She finds it adorable and coos over his red cheeks_ ). “He’s a lucky young man then,” she says, “Having someone like you to look after him.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Steve says, ducking his head bashfully, “I’d say I was the one who ended up lucky.”

“I hope you aren’t picking on my husband too much ma’am,” Bucky says as he walks in with the pie. Placing it down on the counter top, he slips an arm around Steve’s waist and smiles at Janice.

“None of that ma’am business,” she orders, pretending to be stern, “Like I told Steven here, just call me Janice.”

“Are you sure you won’t stay for breakfast?” Steve asks, remembering his mother’s hosting skills from years ago.

Patting his cheek softly, the elderly woman smiles, “Not today dear, although I might take you up on that offer soon, with how lovely everything smells. Al’s got a check-up today, it’s nothing serious, just his hip giving him trouble again, it happens with old age.”

Albert clasps Bucky’s shoulder on the way out and thanks him for his service and Janice makes Steve promise that they’ll stop by for dinner sometime this week. As they sit down at the table to eat their breakfast, Bucky chips in, “She’s right you know, these do smell delicious. You’re a really good cook.”

“I used to cook a lot at home,” he says by way of explanation. “Ma didn’t have a lot of time to cook for us with all the extra shifts she used to take and it was cheaper for us if I cooked rather than her order food. But you know, there is one thing you can do to pay me back for the food.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

Steve slides his empty plate forward, “The dishes are all yours jerk.”

Grocery shopping with Bucky is definitely an experience. From what he can tell, the man has lived on take-out and top ramen all his life (at least when he wasn’t on missions). While Steve painstakingly picks out fruits and vegetables that are in good condition and follows the shopping list he’s made out, Bucky tries to convince Steve to let him buy an industrial sized box of Lucky Charms.

“Absolutely not.”

“But St-eve,” he says, drawing out the other man’s name in a whine, “It has marshmallows.”

“Your teeth will rot before you turn thirty.” Steve says unamused and turns back to the boxes of oatmeal. A young mother whose son is trying to convince her to buy a box of Cocoa Pops smiles understandingly at him. “They’re like overgrown kids sometimes,” Steve says, rolling his eyes. Laughing the woman agrees, and adds, “The only difference is that it’s easier to convince kids not to do stupid things.”

“Steve Kilkenny.” He says, and shakes her hand, “And the overgrown kid there is my husband James Gregg.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Deborah Platt. And that’s my son Michael. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you two around before, have you just moved here?”

“We have, we were looking for a new start and the company where I work offered us this, so we took the chance.” Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Bucky going stiff for a minute, before he casually wheels his their cart away. That’s almost a sure sign that’s he seen something.

“You’ll have to excuse me, but I need to stop my husband from coming home with a boatload of frozen lasagnes again.”

“Of course, it was lovely meeting you. I hope we’ll see you around again.”

Offering one last wave, he heads behind Bucky who he finds has stopped in the next aisle. To the common onlooker he looks like he’s examining packets of ramen noodles for the best one, but Steve knows better. Steve loops his arms around Bucky’s waist, and leans closer under the guise of easy affection. Whispering in his ear, he asks, “What is it?”

Bucky tilts the packet he’s holding towards Steve, pretending to talk to him about the contents, and replies, “See that man standing down the aisle? I’ll tell you more about him when we’re back home, but he’s definitely not small fry.”

The man in question is a diminutive, unassuming character who’s placing cans of spaghetti into his own cart. Steve can’t really tell why Bucky’s so worried about the man with mousy brown hair but he trusts his judgement.

Bucky doesn’t talk to Steve immediately when they get back, instead heading upstairs to call Fury. He puts away their groceries instead, mentally planning what to make for lunch. He’s pulling out a chopping board when the doorbell rings.

Tony Stark is loud, personable and animated. Steve’s amazed by how much he says and how he little he reveals. The man’s sitting on their sofa, with a cup of hot coffee in his hand and some biscuits on a plate in front of him. He’s regaling Steve with stories about some of the things he’s invented but Steve can tell he doesn’t trust him. Whatever Stark is telling him is common knowledge for people in SHIELD. No, he’s waiting for Bucky to come down before he really says anything.

They both turn around when they hear Bucky’s footsteps on the stairs and Tony offers him a tense smile.

Steve tries not to feel disappointed when Bucky sits on the loveseat, away from him. It’s too soon for him to become attached.

“I just got off the phone with Fury.” Bucky tells Tony. “Steve and I just saw Zemo walking around the grocery place.”

“I’ve bumped into him a couple of times. And he’s not the only one,” Tony continues darkly, “Bruce and I have seen Rumlow and Rollins hanging around here. There were a couple of kids who were talking about ‘a scary red man’ they saw down near the playground when they snuck out in the middle of the night.”

“Red Skull” Bucky mutters under his breath.

“Not to mention the fact that Pierce himself might be here.”

Till this point, Steve’s been mentally cataloguing the names so he can dig up info later and start pulling together details when he needs them. But when Tony mentions Pierce, his train of thought gets cut off as Bucky inhales sharply and sits up, ramrod straight.

“Alexander Pierce?” he asks, his voice sharp.

Tony looks taken aback by his intensity. “The one and only. Although Bruce and I haven’t seen him personally, but based on some of the local accounts…” he trails off and let’s his statement sink in.

Bucky hasn’t relaxed and Steve’s not sure if he’s meant to chip in, but at the same time, he needs to gather more information if he’s going to be able to help locate Dr. Banner. Steeling himself, he asks Tony, “Mr. Stark, about Dr. Banner.”

“Tony.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Call me Tony. Mr. Stark was my father, I go by Tony.”

Nodding, Steve crosses that rumour off the list, Tony definitely does not get along with his old man.

“Tony then, could you tell me about Dr. Banner’s disappearance?”

This seems to snap Bucky out of it, “Christ Tony, I’m sorry, after seeing Zemo I completely forgot.”

“I don’t blame you. We were as shocked as you were the first time we bumped into one of them. I’m sure Coulson gave you some of the basic details. But as you know, Bruce and I were posted here when we realised that this definitely wasn’t a routine HYDRA operation. It took us awhile to find anything out, but from what we could tell, HYDRA has been involved with human experimentation. There have been reports of experimentation in several different cells, each with little to no success. For whatever reason, they were obsessed with the idea of creating ‘Super-Soldiers’, genetically enhanced beings who were stronger than regular humans and healed quicker.”

“But creating something like that isn’t easy. You can’t just tinker around with the human genome and expect to come out fine and dandy. None of their experiments worked, as was seen by the dead bodies we retrieved in different cells and when SHIELD redoubled their efforts to shut HYDRA down, they all seemed to vanish. For whatever reason, it looks like they’ve started their experimentation up again here. They’re not using locals to test on, that would draw too much attention, but someone found a body at the edge of the forest about a month ago. From the looks of it, the poor guy had dragged himself out of captivity when he had a chance to escape but had succumbed to his injuries. He had all the classic signs of HYDRA torture.”

“Bruce and I tried digging around a bit more, but somewhere along the lines, someone caught on. About a week before we were meant to send in our first mission report to Fury, Bruce went out to the library to do some research. He never came back.”

“Security cam footage? Witness information? What about his cell phone?” Steve asks.

“The tracker on his phone was disabled. That was the first thing I tried. The only good thing is that the phone he was using was a temp, meaning that hopefully they haven’t placed him as a part of SHIELD. Security cam footage shows him entering into the library but doesn’t show him leaving. As for witness information, we’ve not filed a formal complaint. We’re trying to draw minimal attention to ourselves here. If you get law enforcement involved, HYDRA will be out of here before you can finish blinking. As far as anyone knows, Bruce is away visiting family. Since no one’s contested that claim, that means no one’s seen him since then.”

“Which probably means HYDRA has him with the rest of the test subjects,” Steve mutters, wincing when Tony clenches his fist. “I’m sorry Tony, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s fine kid, just, I hope you and Barnes can find him, before shit really hits the fan.”

After refusing to stay for lunch, Bucky walks him to the door, and they talk in soft murmurs near the entrance before the man leaves.

Lunch is a muted affair and Steve moves into the work room to start pulling up data about the men he’s heard about. Most of the SHIELD files are encrypted but Coulson’s sent him a decryption key and he tries to absorb what he can. He doesn’t realise how much time he’s been in there until a shadow falls over his shoulder.

Looking up, he finds Bucky with a plate of warmed up mac and cheese and a mug of tea.

“You should take a break,” he says softly. His eyes zero in on the file open on the screen, a page about Alexander Pierce and his knuckles turn white with how tightly he’s clutching the mug.

They don’t talk about it over dinner, sitting in silence, till Bucky says, “They’re not…they’re not good people. I figure you’d have gathered as much from what you’ve read, but what you need to understand is that these men, if you can call them that, are viler than anyone you’ll ever meet. The Red Skull, originally, he was just a man, with a black heart. HYDRA had an old prototype of the serum which they tried out on him and it failed terribly. They say he lost his face, it got transformed into a monstrosity which is how he got his name.”

“Not a lot of people know much about Zemo, he appeared a few years ago, apparently dead set on seeking revenge from SHIELD. He’s one of the most intelligent men you’ll meet, and the most unassuming which can be a deadly combination. Arnim Zola, although no one’s seen him yet is the man behind a lot of this madness. He started off as a scientist for a Neo-Nazi faction which was bad enough, but apparently that didn’t satisfy his quest for power which is how he ended up in HYDRA. The concepts for the experimentation all come from him. He’s second only to one man.”

“Alexander Pierce is at the head of HYDRA and if there’s one person who couldn’t die more slowly it’s him. He’s a twisted bastard, who’s known to have a real penchant for words. A lot of the people he recruits fall prey to what he’s saying and before they know it, they’re sucked into his trap. Pierce comes from old money, which is where he got a good deal of the initial funding for HYDRA. Initially, he was one of the Board members of SHIELD, but well, he believes in eugenics and creating a superior enhanced race to keep revolts and disturbances to a minimum. It was fairly obvious that he didn’t fit in with the rest of SHIELD. And when I said he’s twisted, I didn’t mean it lightly. Torture and death are regular everyday things for him.”

He picks at his food and Steve’s unwilling to ask him more. Bucky’s right, he did read a lot about them but what Bucky’s saying sounds more personal. He wonders about his time at HYDRA, how he ended up there and how he escaped.

He doesn’t sleep that night, staring at the bright screen of his computer till Bucky drags him away for breakfast the next morning.

“You know it’s not healthy to spend that much time in front of a screen right?” Bucky asks, as he pours cereal into a bowl.

“I’m aware of it,” Steve responds, he’s always a little cranky after he pulls an all-nighter. “But it was something I needed to do. I’ve been extracting data from nearby servers and cameras trying to put together a timeline or something that’ll help us figure out what’s been happening.”

“Did you manage to find anything interesting?” Bucky asks.

“It’s going to take at least a week for me to give you anything completely concrete,” Steve admits, “SHIELD’s been keeping track of them but as individuals. Because so much of this is classified none of us have ever tried to really analyse the reports for patterns or similarities. But from what I can tell, a lot of the individual sightings seem to be linked to one another. For instance, wherever Pierce was seen, Zola was sighted either before or after with a one year buffer period. And every place where he was sighted has reports of people going missing, as well as dead bodies turning up.”

“HYDRA’s gotten better at covering their tracks recently but with this sort of pattern it would be easy to track them and search for more events.”

Bucky looks impressed and lets Steve continue, “There’s only one thing that doesn’t add up in that equation and that’s Zemo. He isn’t a part of HYDRA at least according to our initial reports so that made me wonder what he was doing here. I did some digging around and…”

He’s cut off by the doorbell, followed by a series of knocks. Bucky’s out of his seat like a shot and heads to the door calling out, “That’s Tony.”

Stark strides in a few seconds later, fidgeting and Steve wonders how much coffee the man has had.

“HYDRA’s starting to break pattern,” he says, “Last night, a young boy went missing from his house. I didn’t know if it was HYDRA initially, but I’ve been keeping surveillance on a lot of places closer to the forest area. I was going over some of the footage from the street cam and found this.”

Pulling out a tablet, he shows them footage of the boy being carried out of his home. He’s limp in his captor’s arms and it’s obvious the boy’s been drugged. His captor avoids the camera and there’s no way to tell who it is, until at one point when the driver turns the key in the ignition, the light from the dashboard lights up a strange symbol on his wrist. Steve recognises that symbol.

“Shit,” Bucky swears. “They don’t usually take citizens do they?” The question’s directed at Steve, who shakes his head, “From what we know no, it’s out of the ordinary. But like I said, the information is incomplete and I do know in some of their previous cells, there were reports of civilians going missing which some agents wanted to link to HYDRA.”

That night, Bucky and Steve settle in bed, this time with Steve using the tablet to keep drawing up potential links. Bucky’s been on the phone with Fury since Tony left and he’d walked into the room scowling. Steve winces when he emerges from the shower, still angry and slams the door shut. Catching the grimace, Bucky sighs, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be taking this out on you. It’s just, there’s so much hanging in the balance here and we’re so many cards short of a full deck.”

“We won’t be,” Steve assures him with more certainty than he feels, “I’ve already found out a lot more than we started with. Just give me a day or two and we’ll be able to figure this out Bucky.”

“I know,” he replies, lying down next to Steve, tucking his arms behind his head, “I believe in you, it’s just, first Bruce and now some kid. And we don’t know if…” _If they’re alive._

“We’ll find them Bucky.” Steve says, not willing to think of the alternative.

Rolling over so he’s propped up on one elbow, he gazes at Steve, “You know, you never finished telling me about Zemo.”

“It’s nothing really pleasant,” Steve explains. “From what I found his father, also named Zemo, was a real piece of work. He was an active part of the Nazi regime and largely involved in the destruction of several small villages and towns, what he claimed was ‘necessary eugenic cleansing.’ No guesses why he and Pierce got along so well. He was killed when our Zemo was five, as part of a raid of some sort. Zemo was raised by his mother, who by that point was largely mentally unstable and from the social services records, there were signs of abuse and neglect. At age ten, there’s an altercation in the household that leaves the mother dead and Zemo disappears. He reappears twenty-five years later working for Pierce.”

“He’s been tied to a specific set of jobs, mostly related to eliminating fringe elements of HYDRA, people who had gone into retirement but Pierce wanted to eliminate from the payroll. I’m not entirely sure why he was recruited himself, it’s going to take some time to figure out where he went, but my guess is Pierce found some way to blame SHIELD for his misfortune. I’ve found details of some his targets but none of them are particularly note-worthy except for this one. Two years ago, from what I can make out, Zemo was responsible for the death of an elderly Russian man who lived on the outskirts of a small town. Locals didn’t know much about him, but when authorities were sweeping his home, his name flagged our databases. The man’s name was Vasily Karpov.”

Bucky swears, something that sounds like it’s in Russian, and it sounds so bitter and acidic that Steve stops completely.

“I guess I need to send Zemo flowers someday.” He says, though there’s no happiness on his face.

“Huh?” Steve asks, confused.

“I knew Karpov when I was a part of HYDRA. Vasily Karpov was my handler.”

* * *

I have a [tumblr](everydayindian.tumblr.com) where I pretend I have my life together. Come say hi and we can talk about puppies, food and Stucky~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being a LOT longer than I expected. Initially this just started as a single chapter in my mind but it's really spiralled out of control (I'm not complaining).
> 
> *NOTE *  
> So the next chapter was supposed to be out today, I had it typed it out on my laptop and had gone for a shower  
> Came back to find my laptop upgrading Windows without my permission  
> I have no idea what files I'm going to lose or how long it'll take to sort this mess out. But short of a miracle, this story is now on a hiatus (at least for this weekend)


	4. Chapter 4

He’s awake before the sun rises above the horizon and slips into work mode. The work-room computer has been running programs the entire night. After what Tony had told them last night, Steve has modified his search algorithm. There’s something that makes him think they’re looking in the wrong places.

Bucky hasn’t said much to him after what he admitted yesterday. He’d retreated into his own head and had gone silent. Steve can’t say he blames him.

He feeds in an image of Zemo’s face into the facial recognition software and decides to run a global search for the period where Zemo had disappeared. If he can trace Zemo’s movements, it might give him a better idea of who the man is and why he was working for HYDRA. Someone, somewhere had to have seen Zemo. With the way technology was, it was almost impossible to completely hide from society.

Scanning through the files the server’s pulled up from his previous search, his jaw drops.

“Damn,” he breathes, letting his fingers fly over the keyboard as he refines his search parameters and extracts data.

“Found something?” a voice comes from over his shoulder.

Jumping, he turns to find Bucky standing at the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He looks alert and completely awake despite the fact Steve knows he can’t have been awake for more than five minutes. He suspects his ability to move so quickly is a part of what makes him a good spy.

“I think I did,” he says, turning back to the monitor. “Remember how we thought HYDRA was breaking pattern here? It turns out they aren’t. By the look of it, they’re actually following the same pattern they followed everywhere else. We missed it because we were largely focused on clearing out HYDRA cells.  We went in, stopped HYDRA and left and kept the bare minimum of tabs on the areas after, mainly focusing on the cells themselves. Except, if you look here and here,” he says pointing at documents open on the screen, “Remember that death we’re saying was linked to HYDRA here? That’s replicated in a couple of places. All with the same injury patterns and signs of torture on the victims.”

“We sort of passed it off as a random off-chance thing, because for those cases, there was nothing to link it to HYDRA. But all the incidents seem to occur after four months of us clearing a HYDRA cell. Which is enough time that we’d lose interest in the area and look elsewhere.”

“So they were taking people for experimentation?” Bucky asks. “It looks like it,” Steve replies, “But I can’t be sure. It doesn’t look like they’ve been successful because there seems to be an escalation of violence as the years go by, like they were getting more and more frustrated. Not too many people out of SHIELD know that Tony and Bruce work for SHIELD and they  joined after Pierce left, which is a good thing because they don’t know SHIELD has picked up their trail here.”

“Is there any indication where the experimentation was being carried out?”

“Not really, although in this case, I’m willing to place a bet on it being near the forest. It would give them the cover that they needed and it’s far enough from the city to avoid being disturbed by curious civilians. Tony said those kids saw Red Skull near a playground right?” Pulling up a map where he’s marked up points and locations, he continues, “There’s a playground that falls within a mile radius of the forest. It’s closed after dark because the council has declared it unsafe. And according to some of the old city blueprints, this city used to have mining tracks that ran underground. There’s an entrance pretty close to the playground.”

“Steve that’s fantastic, that’s something we can work with. Although I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the entrance is probably monitored so I can’t just walk in without a plan. But I’ve got the go-ahead from Fury to start surveillance of some of the other locations we’ve been looking at. I’m going to be paying a visit to the kidnapped kid’s home tonight. There’s a chance that HYDRA has left something behind and I want to gather any information I can about the kid.”

After breakfast, Bucky heads out telling Steve he’s going to go down to the store and pick up a couple of things he’ll need for tonight. The van that was used for the abduction has turned up by the side of the river and though it’s been largely burnt, Bucky wants to sweep it for any evidence he can get.

The facial recognition software is still processing the query he’s fed it and the new search algorithm he’s fed in won’t be processed for another few hours. Switching the computer onto standby he logs out and stretches his arms. It’s a nice day outside, he decides to take a stroll and see if there’s anyone about.

Down the road, as he’s turning the corner, he’s stopped by Janice who looks pleased to see him, but then her smile drops as she tells him about the young boy, Kyle, who had been kidnapped. He promises to be careful and tells her to have a nice day. As she leaves, he gets the feeling that someone’s watching him.

Turning around, he catches a man staring at him, unblinkingly.

It clicks almost instantly, that’s Zemo, who’s sitting at a café table across the road and staring at him with almost military precision. He wishes Bucky was with him, because he’s not entirely sure what he’s meant to do. And shit, Zemo’s realised that he’s seen him, he needs to act normal now. ( _Normal, right, because he didn’t meet Sam by running into him and knocking him off his feet. He totally did normal._ )

He smiles at the man, hoping he’s coming off as friendly rather than potentially terrified, and offers a small wave. And oh no, that might have worked too well, because Zemo’s coming over to him.

Stopping in front of him, the smaller man peers at him suspiciously, not saying anything and Steve’s not sure what he’s supposed to say, if he’s meant to say anything at all.  Luckily he’s saved from saying anything since Zemo beats him to it.

“I’ve never seen you around before.” He says suspiciously.

“Uh, yes… we… My husband and I that is, we just moved in a couple of days ago. I’m Steve Kilkenny, it’s very nice to meet you.” He says, trying to remain cheerful and offers his hand to Zemo, who ignores it completely and introduces himself as Kroger. “You’re friends with Tony DiBroglio?” The way he says it, it sounds like an accusation.

“Sort of,” he says, keeping his tone purposefully light. “Tony lives close by and was kind enough to stop by and welcome us to the neighbourhood. Why,” he continues, adding a bit of steel to his tone, “Is there a problem with that?”

Zemo backs down a bit, obviously not having expected Steve to call him out over his attitude. “No no, not at all. But I should warn you, as you’ve just moved here. Mr. DiBroglio is a real character and there are rumours, rumours that he’s not nearly as good of a man as he claims.”

Steve’s heard enough, “Thank you for your concern Mr. Kroger, but I’ve not been brought up to believe rumours. Have a good day.” And he rushes back home.

Bucky’s **_furious_** when he hears, “You approached him? Are you insane? He could have done anything to you! Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“I hardly expected him to be there didn’t I? And he had already seen me looking at him, what was I supposed to do, say ‘Oh I’m sorry I can’t talk to you till my husband shows up.’ Yeah that wouldn’t have been suspicious at all. Not to mention it would painted you in a terrible light.”

Bucky rakes a hand through his hair exasperatedly, “That’s not the point. Who cares if they think I’m a bad person, the point is you could have gotten hurt.”

“He was hardly going to try anything in broad daylight pal,” now he’s getting irritated, “And besides, I can handle myself alright. I don’t need coddling.”

“Look, I didn’t mean that you couldn’t, it’s just they’re dangerous people and you haven’t ever…”

“Yes, I’ve heard. Repeatedly. I don’t have a lot of first-hand experience with them. Guess what? That’s part and parcel of Intel. I didn’t get here by anyone holding my hand and I certainly don’t appreciate you insinuating that I can’t do my job.”

He’s furious and slams the door behind him, shutting himself into their work-room.

As he sinks into the chair, he wonders if this counts as their first fight as a married couple.

A beep from the computer pulls him out of his musings and he realises that the computer has finished one of the algorithms. Pulling up the documents, he curses under his breath ( _A bar of soap isn’t enough Stevie, I’ll wash out your mouth with lye, he can hear his mother say_ ). He had expected a lot of things, but not this.

He wonders how pissed Fury will be when he finds out Steve’s planning on hacking a government server.

_Several houses away, a man sits alone at his dining table, a music box open in front of him. He watches the tiny elephant turn round and round, his eyes unfocused. The music is muted in his mind and his eyes trace its movements._

_A woman’s voice echoes in his thoughts, “When you go out, will you buy some milk as well. We’re running low.”_

_His hands shake as he winds up the music box again. As he sets it down gently on the table, he whispers to the empty space around him, “Of course I will. I love you, I’ll see you soon.”_

_The music box does little to muffle his sobs._

There’s a knock on the door and Steve stiffens, it’s got to be Bucky, but why is he knocking?

“Can I come in?” his voice asks, and Steve’s shocked to realise that the man seems hesitant. “You live here too,” he replies, then sighs. This is stupid, he shouldn’t behave like this.

“Sorry,” he says, as he turns his chair around. “That was unneeded.”

Bucky’s got a tray of food in front of him and Steve’s eyes widen. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

Laughing sheepishly, he admits, “I can’t, this is from the restaurant nearby. I figured that food poisoning was a pretty crap way of saying I was sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, I over-reacted.” Steve protests.

“Yes I do. I came off as a real jerk and you had every right to be angry. I’m not going to pretend that I won’t get worried if you go off on your own again, but you need to know, I do trust you and I know you can take care of yourself.”

He tries not to smile at Bucky’s words, “Thanks Buck. That means a lot to me. I guess I still get worked up when people assume I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s an attitude I’ve carried over from when I was a kid, because I was so tiny.”

Snorting, Bucky asks, “How small were you?”

Steve has a photo in his wallet, one of him and his mom from before she got sick. He shows it to Bucky, whose jaw drops, but not for the reason Steve expects, “You were adorable!”

“I was not adorable.” He grumbles, cheeks red.

“You were totally adorable,” Bucky crows and pokes Steve’s cheek. “What are you looking at anyway? Anything important or do you want to have dinner first?”

He pauses, he had almost forgotten about that. “I’m finished with this, but I think you need to hear what I found. I thought it was really strange that Zemo would go out of his way to find out why we were talking to Tony. When I came back, the computer had finished the scan I had set up to search for his face.”

“This picture of Zemo was pulled up ten years ago, in Sokovia.”

“No.” Bucky breathes.

“So he hates me because of Sokovia?” Tony asks, “He needs to get in line for that one.”

“Zemo relocated to Sokovia when he was in his mid-twenties, he had a steady job, a wife and a kid. I think, based on an old census report that I pulled up, his wife’s father lived with them as well. I think his family perished during the testing of the new suits, during the exhibition you had.”

“But that was because of HYDRA.” Tony protests.

“We took a long time to publically release those details, and by the time we did, a lot of people weren’t willing to buy it.” Bucky says. He’s perched on the arm of the loveseat this time, next to Steve.

“Zemo’s mother suffered from depression and paranoid delusions. There’s a chance that Zemo might suffer from the same problems. Something like this would be more than enough to trigger it. And even though not too many people know what you look like, I think Zemo might. A month after the incident, you were in Sokovia for talks with their Secret Society about compensation. Around that time, Zemo had been arrested for taking part in a minor civil disobedience movement that had been protesting the fact you were being allowed into the country again. Given the time frame and the location of his arrest, I think he saw you in passing.”

“And he’s remembered me ever since.” Tony says.

“When you showed up with Bruce, this was his chance to get revenge. Which is why he didn’t hurt you. In his mind, you’re responsible for the loss of his family. He probably wants to be responsible for the loss of yours. But” he hastens to say, “I don’t think Bruce is dead. Zemo is trying to gather information about you and there’s no better source than Bruce right now.”

He knows exactly how worried Bucky was as he sits alone at home, at their workstation, monitoring Bucky’s movements from the monitor. Bucky’s out by the river, scoping out the wrecked vehicle before law enforcement takes it away.

“They’ve covered their tracks pretty well,” says Bucky. He has an earpiece that’ll allow him to transmit information to Steve and let Steve communicate with him. Steve’s got eyes on the area around him, making sure he can tell Bucky if someone comes closer.

Bucky runs his hand over the dashboard, like he’s searching for something. A minute later, he finds it and forces a compartment open. Shining his penlight in the area, he mutters, “You seeing this?” he asks and Steve hums in response. At the back of the compartment is the HYDRA symbol, not quite burned beyond recognition.

“The rest of the car is a bust, but at least we know this is definitely HYDRA. Send a mail to Coulson and tell him to have some intercept the vehicle delivery tomorrow. SHIELD needs to analyse this vehicle and see if there’s anything we can get from it.”

Steve does that, keeping one eye on the monitor as Bucky heads over to Kyle’s house. He easily climbs the fence and makes it into the boy’s bedroom before Steve knows what’s happening. He envies the easy grace that Bucky carries himself with. Rifling through the contents of the room Bucky whispers, “I’m not sure why anyone would kidnap this kid.” He slides a secure USB into the computer and it glows red as it begins to copy his hard drive.

“Kid’s a baseball fan, looks like he played for a high school team. He looks really healthy too. Practically no doctor visits, according to his medical file, the last time he even went to the doctor was for a fever almost a year ago. He’s a good student, above average and had a lot of friends.”

“Sounds like a good candidate for a Super Soldier,” Steve says.

“He’s been hanging around that playground we were looking at, the one near the forest.”

“That’s probably where they saw him first.”

A movement on the monitor catches Steve’s eye. “Bucky,” he hisses, “You need to move now, there’s movement in the parent’s room.”

“I’m almost done copying his files, we’re at 90%.”

“Too much of a risk, get out of there now.”

“Hang on Steve.”

On the monitor, Kyle’s mother wipes her eyes and walks over to her son’s bedroom.

“ _Bucky!_ ”

He grabs the USB stick from the computer and jumps out the window, crouching on the ledge outside just as Kyle’s mother turns the doorknob and walks inside.

“Could you have cut it any closer?” Steve asks, whacking Bucky’s head when he walks in to their bedroom and flops on the bed.

“Sorry punk, I don’t like leaving a job half finished.”

“Just be more careful next time. Coulson replied, someone’ll intercept the delivery tomorrow. He’s asked me to copy and scan the USB files over to them so they can start working on it in SHIELD tomorrow.”

Bucky stills where he’s been in the middle of bunching up his pillow to make it more comfortable. “Speaking about tomorrow…”

Steve cocks his head to the side, “Yes?”

“Uh…when I was grabbing dinner for you, I bumped into Janice. She’s having a small get-together at their place tomorrow. We’ve been officially invited and she said, quote, unquote, ‘She’s holding us to our word that we’ll show.’ I think it might be a good idea to go, never know who we might meet. But I think it’s a pot luck, so we need to bring something.”

“That’s fine, I can probably boil up some pasta or something, that’s not a problem. I’m just imagining you getting cornered by a little old lady.”

“That little old lady is fierce.”

Steve laughs, and tells Bucky to go to sleep.

They don’t get a lot of rest, because in the middle of the night, he’s jarred awake when something slams into his chest. His eyes snap open and he jerks awake. He’s been thrown awake by Bucky’s arm, which has hit him because the man is tossing and turning in his sleep. Rivulets of sweat pour down the side of his face and he mutters anxiously in his sleep. Steve’s Russian is limited, but he can tell Bucky’s saying no and that he sounds frightened.

“Bucky,” he says softly, “Bucky you need to wake up.” He doesn’t touch him in fear of agitating the man further, but calls out to him again, this time a little louder. It seems to do it, because Bucky jerks upright, gasping as his eyes focus and he tries to re-orient himself.

“Here”, says Steve, pressing a glass of water into his hands, holding it there when he sees how badly the other man is shaking.

“Sorry,” he rasps, “Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steve asks.

“Not really, no. Don’t think I’ll be able to go back to sleep though.” He says sorrowfully. All Steve can think of is how Bucky reminds him of a kicked puppy and he says, “That’s fine. Tell you what, why don’t we head down to the living room and watch some terrible late night television.”

Bucky looks taken aback, “No, Steve you don’t have to…”

“I don’t. But you’re my husband,” he winks at this, “And I’d be a pretty shit husband if I didn’t look after you.”

Bucky smiles, a small pitiful imitation of his regular grin, but it still relieves Steve. “You’re such a dork.”

As he heads down to the kitchen, he calls back, “But I’m your dork!”

Ten minutes later finds them curled up on the sofa, Steve leaning on Bucky’s shoulder with Bucky’s arm wrapped around him. They both have huge steaming mugs of his mum’s spiced cocoa that she used to make when he wasn’t feeling well and they’re snuggled under the biggest, fuzziest blanket he could find. They’re watching some terrible reality TV program, about home renovations or something, but it’s enough to distract Bucky which is all he really wants.

Bucky draws circles on Steve’s waist and Steve struggles not to burrow further into Bucky’s side.

It’s going to be a long night.

* * *

 

I'm on [tumblr!](http://everydayindian.tumblr.com/) Stop by and say hi! We can talk about stuff, like puppies and food (or Stucky and fanfiction, because that works too)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So last night, my computer decided to upgrade itself to the new Windows and give me a mini-heart attack. Luckily, it copied all my files.
> 
> The spiced cocoa is based on a spiced tea my mum makes which I really want right now because I'm having a terrible week.
> 
> Also thank you to everyone who's been sticking with this story and reading/reviewing it! Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky wakes up and groans, stretching his arms above his head. He hasn’t slept that well for a long time. Blinking to clear the sleep from his eyes, he sits up and lets the blanket that was draped over him pool around his waist. He’s still sleep-warm and a part of him wants to slip back into that comfortable sleepy haze, but he can hear Steve pottering around in the kitchen so pads over to investigate.

Steve’s in his element in the kitchen, stirring something that’s sizzling away in a pan, with the radio on his phone turned low so as not to disturb Bucky. Its jazz, Bucky realises with a start, something sultry and warm, that makes Bucky want to go dancing. He leans against the doorway, listening with a small smile on his face as Steve hums along to it, before clearing his throat and calling out a greeting to Steve.

Startled, he turns around, face red as he splutters and tries to reply. Bucky decides not to tease him more and heads to the cabinet where he knows they’ve kept the coffee. A silence descends in the kitchen, but it’s not uncomfortable and before long Bucky’s sipping coffee from some weird novelty mug Steve had picked up from who knows where. Steve’s gone back to stirring whatever’s frying in the pan and Bucky’s almost content to just stand there in silence and watch him.

_Almost._

“About last night…” he begins nervously. Steve stills at the counter, before he replies, “You don’t need to explain,” he says. Catching sight of Bucky’s incredulous expression he continues, “With the line of work we’re in, and with what you’ve been through, we’re all entitled to bad dreams. But,” he says firmly, turning around, “I will say, and this could be me overstepping, but yesterday, that seemed like more than a run-off-the-mill nightmare. I have a friend who works down at the VA, and sometimes I go there and help out. There are a lot of fine men and women who go through what you do on a regular basis Buck, and sometimes, they need a little extra help to overcome it.”

“I’m not going to see a shrink.” Bucky says scowling, “ _I’m fine._ ”

“It doesn’t need to be a psychiatrist,” Steve says “But even other people can help. My friend Sam, he might be able to help out too. Just, at least promise me you’ll think about it.”

Shrugging one shoulder up and down, Bucky ignores the warm feeling that bubbles up in his stomach when Steve beams at him. Like a goddamn golden retriever he was.

“What’cha making?” he asks, shifting the focus away from him.

“Oh this? It’s for Janice’s party. I thought it would be rude to show-up empty handed so I’m making some fried rice.”

Raising an eyebrow at him, he quips, “That’s conventional.”

“Shut it.”

“Smells good though. Can I…”

“There’s food on the table for us. You most definitely cannot taste this until we get to the Eidowners. I’ve seen your appetite, if you decide to taste some, we won’t have any left for the actual party.”

Bucky’s glad they decided to accept Janice’s invitation.  It seems like everyone in the neighbourhood had shown up and they were getting to meet plenty of people. Janice had swooped down the moment she’d seen them and berated Steve when she’d seen the dish in his hands. She couldn’t be too mad though because she’s pressed a kiss to his cheeks and dragged him off to meet some of her friends.

Albert grinned at Bucky’s amazed expression and had hobbled over. “That husband of yours is making a real hit with the ladies.”

“That’s Stevie for you,” he drawled, “He fits in wherever he goes.”

The elderly man heaves himself down in a chair and beckons Bucky to do the same. Fixing him with a knowing glance, he asks, “Rough night kid?”

“How’d you…”

“Served up in Vietnam, seems like a lifetime ago. Leg never worked the same after. I’m guessing for you it’s that arm of yours? Don’t look so shocked kid, you favour it sometimes. It’s not very noticeable unless you’re someone who’s seen it before.” Shifting around a bit to make himself more comfortable he says, “You know you’d have liked our son, Jack. Decided he wanted to follow in his pops footsteps and signed up for the army.”

Something claws at the bottom of his stomach, ugly and painful. “What happened to him?”

Albert closes his eyes briefly and slumps forward, and for a split second Bucky thinks about how old and worn down he looks. “He went missing. Got separated from his squadron almost two years ago and they haven’t heard from him since. Janice almost went out of her mind with grief. We’ve pulled ourselves back together since then, but I’ll tell you one thing, if it wasn’t for Janice, my mind would still be trapped there. You’ve got a good thing with Steve, don’t let it slip away.”

Shakily pushing himself to his feet, he waves away Bucky’s attempts to help him and smiles, “That’s enough of a tired old man’s ramblings for one day isn’t it? Let’s go join the party. You probably want to save Steve from Janice round-about now.”

Wading through the crowd, he finds Steve standing in the midst of a small circle of kids, a young boy in his arms, expressions of glee on both their faces. They’re playing something that Bucky can’t quite grasp but to be fair, he isn’t trying very hard. All he can see is how Steve looks, with his stupid plaid button down shirt and worn jeans, laughing and fooling around with the kids, his blue eyes crinkling as he spins around.

His mind slips back to the words from before, _This is isn’t the best career path for that_ , and he can’t help but think that he’s well and truly sunk.

Oh it’s not that SHIELD wouldn’t let them date. There’d be some stipulations of course, not working the same missions and such, but most people in SHIELD understood the dangers of their job. Life was too short and too dangerous.

He wasn’t worried about professional limitations.

He was worried about himself. HYDRA had left him well and truly screwed and to be honest, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever completely recover. Steve wanted happiness and stability and a family. Bucky didn’t think he could provide him with any of the three.

A gentle pressure on his sleeve pulls him out of his thoughts and he looks down to find a little girl in a pink dress staring thoughtfully at him. He’s not too good with kids, but he can remember looking after Becca, so he crouches down to her level and smiles at her, asking her if she’s ok.

“Are you Stevie’s prince?” she asks, in that blunt way only kids can manage.

Bucky’s shocked into silence ( _by a 6 year old, he’s revoking his spy membership card immediately_ ).

“See, we wanted to play princes and princesses with Stevie but he said he already had a prince waiting for him. Is that you?”

He knows that it’s probably only because they’ve got to maintain cover, but he can’t stop himself from smiling and leading her back to the circle of kids. Later when they’re helping the parents shepherd the excited children for dinner, he leans in and mutters into Steve’s ear, “So I’m a prince huh?” and smirks at how flustered the other man becomes. He doesn’t think that will ever grow old.

He sits close to Steve on the sofa, and lets his arm drape around Steve’s waist. They’ve talked to a couple of people, but so far nothing significant has turned up. Almost all the parents here have heard about Kyle and a couple tell Bucky about how awful it is and how their kids knew Kyle or used to play together.

“I used to get terrified when the kids would go down to the old playground though,” one woman says, shaking her head. Bucky pretends to not know what she’s talking about, and another woman, Deborah, he remembers, chimes in.

“The old playground by the forest. Awhile back, we didn’t have nearly enough spaces for the children, so the city council built a small playground for them. Of course, they didn’t plan it nearly as well as they could have and built it right at the edge of the forest, which made it terribly unsafe for the kids. Off late though, things have gotten stranger. Some of the children have talked about seeing things or hearing strange noises. At first we thought it was just a silly story, some rumour one child had started up and everyone followed but,” she paused and looked around, “Well, about half a year ago, old Mrs. Blake went down to get her grandson. She came back white as a sheet and gave her husband a right scare. Swore up and down she had seen men heading down into the old mineshafts. No one else has seen them and no one’s foolish enough to go down there, but when the city council was alerted, they started tightening security around the park.”

Another younger woman, whose name Bucky can’t place adds, “Wasn’t that around the time Mr. Alexei joined the City Council?”

He feels like something cold has been injected into his veins. It couldn’t be, no the name had to be a coincidence.

Deborah’s nodding, “I think so. I don’t remember where he said he was from, he’s a bit more reclusive with the information about himself he shares, but he made it very clear that no children were meant to be playing down in the playground after dark.”

The women continue to discuss things among themselves, but Bucky tightens his grip on Steve’s waist.

“You ok?” Steve whispers, noting the way his breathing’s changed. When Bucky doesn’t respond, his jaw tightens, “Yeah ok, we’re leaving right now. Just wait here. I’m going to tell Albert and we’re going to go home.”

He gently extricates himself from Bucky’s grip and hurries over to Albert. Making sure he looks unperturbed (so as not to draw extra attention to themselves), he guides Bucky out onto the sidewalk. Bucky sucks in huge gulp of air when they’re outside and clutches Steve’s hand tightly.

“I’m going to assume my initial guess is correct then,” Steve says, “Mr. Alexei is Alexander Pierce, isn’t he?”

“Unless this is a very very screwed up coincidence, yes. He’s used the name Alexei for a few covert ops before. And this is an old tactic of his, infiltrating the target and working from the inside. Like I said, he’s very convincing when he wants to be. No wonder no one has been suspicious about the cell here. What I still don’t understand though, is why here. Why this town?”

They get inside and Bucky squeezes Steve’s hand once more before phoning Fury to relay what they’ve found. Meanwhile, Steve heads up to their workstation, where he’d set up a program to copy and extract all the data from Kyle’s hard disk. Now that the data’s been extracted he’ll send it over to SHIELD to analyse and see if there’s anything that would help them.

Tomorrow he’ll start working on Pierce’s files, see what he can find about the man. They’re still no closer to finding the actual base than before and he knows Bucky’s growing increasingly impatient. Whether they like it or not, Bucky can’t storm the HYDRA base just yet. He feels like there’s a big chunk of information that’s missing, something which he just can’t place his finger on. Why was HYDRA targeting this town, there was no reason for them to.

Going back downstairs, he notices that he has a missed call on his phone.

It’s from Sam, who tells him that he’s missed at home and he wishes he’d call more often. He tells him that they’re all ok and that his mom is more or less the same, but that she misses him and loves him. He resolves to call Sam tomorrow morning and talk to him.

Lifting his head up when he hears Bucky’s footsteps on the stairs, he’s surprised to see the man dressed in his stealth outfit.

“I’m heading out,” Bucky says by way of explanation, “Going on patrol. With the fact we’ve had two kidnappings linked to HYDRA and numerous other HYDRA sightings, Fury thinks it’s time that I started patrolling the neighbourhood. Just for a couple of hours every night, to make sure nothing else goes wrong. I’m going to be paying special attention to Zemo’s house too, because who knows what he’s up to. Fury’s going to be sending back-up soon, though he didn’t specify who. When that happens, we’re going to move in to the cell. The longer we delay, the less chance we have of recovering the hostages alive. I’ll see you in a couple of hours Steve, don’t wait up.” He lets his hand rest on Steve’s shoulder and walks out.

Steve tosses and turns in bed till Bucky comes back, at almost 5 in the morning.                                                                                                                                       

“Anything?” he asks tiredly.

“Thought I told you not to wait up?” Bucky says, trying and failing not to look bemused. But even he can’t hide how exhausted he looks. He’s barely slept the last couple of days and coupled with the stress of their mission, Steve can tell it’s starting to take a toll on him. He’s stripping out of his stealth gear now, not looking in the least bit embarrassed, although to be fair, Steve’s not complaining. He pulls off his shirt and Steve inhales sharply.

He’s never seen Bucky’s left arm before, the other man had always been too careful for that. But now, he’s seen it, and he doubts the image will ever leave his memory.

The skin is scarred and lined, some parts look burnt, others look worse. Steve’s not sure if he’s ever seen damage that bad, not sure if Bucky’s done this to himself, if it was possible to do this to himself.

Bucky’s frozen, his eyes wide as he realises that Steve’s seen what he’s tried to mask for so long. He shifts towards the door and Steve shoots up from the bed, promptly getting his foot tangled up in the bedsheets and tumbles down off the bed.

“I’m ok,” he groans from the heap on the floor. ( _This was why he wasn’t a spy_.)

There’s movement near him, and he realises Bucky’s come closer, to make sure he’s not hurt. But Bucky keeps his distance, not allowing himself to touch Steve. He can see the look of self-disgust on his face and all Steve wants to do is wipe it off his face forever.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Bucky says softly, “A lot of people prefer I do.”

“What? Why would I want you to do that?” he asks, shocked.

“You saw my arm Steve, it’s not exactly a tiny scratch.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asks furiously, trying and failing to free himself. He gives up and returns to being an undignified mass on the floor. “Bucky, I was a tiny asthmatic kid who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs without almost coughing up a lung. I don’t care about your scars at all.” He scowls and returns to trying to untangle himself, when a hand on his ankle stops him.

Bucky slowly and painstakingly unwinds him, freeing him from his cocoon of hell, before bowing his head.

“About ten years ago, I was a stupid kid who thought I knew shit about the world. I got mixed up with the wrong crowd and somehow ended up working as a low level recruit for HYDRA. By the time I’d figured out that I’d screwed up, I was in too deep and they weren’t going to let me go. A couple of years in, there was a raid and something went wrong. I almost lost my arm but for whatever reason, I also caught HYDRA’s eye. There was a man, a doctor, who was working there before Zola, probably held there against his will. He gave me something, I don’t know what, and instead of dying, I ended up with a screwed arm and enhanced abilities.”

“HYDRA was thrilled of course, because they’d been working on enhanced soldiers for decades before that and no one had been successful. With the doctor’s help, they made a small army of soldiers. It was a small mercy that the base we were at was secluded and I had been wearing a mask. But HYDRA didn’t want super soldiers for show. They wanted an army to shape the world. There’s a reason I don’t talk about what I did in HYDRA, and that’s because I can’t remember most of it. We were wiped after almost every mission, programmed for the next.”

“But the serum that we had been given, it started to wear off, and that’s how one day, I was captured by SHIELD. Fury gave me a second chance, along with a couple of the other soldiers in the program. Not too many other people would have been kind enough to do that. That’s where the nightmares come from. Sometimes, memories of what I had done, they slip through and I can see them.”

Steve doesn’t hesitate before grabbing both of Bucky’s hands.

“Look. I want to say that I’m sorry, but both you and I know that will never begin to cover what you’ve been through. But all I can say, is that it’s not your fault. And you’re working to fix things now and that’s all anyone can ask for. The past is the past Buck, it doesn’t belong in the future.”

He tugs the man up and helps him into bed, curling up beside him, “Now come on, you’re exhausted and I am too. Let’s get a couple of hours of shut eye before Fury decides we need to be awake again.”

It takes a while but Bucky falls asleep. Steve can’t get his eyes to close though. He can’t forget what Bucky had told him and as he lets his hand rub circles onto Bucky’s back, he finds himself wondering what happened to this doctor who had made the serum. Because something wasn’t adding up.

If a HYDRA doctor had already created the super-soldier serum that they had been searching for, why was HYDRA desperately trying to recreate it? And more than that, why were they failing so miserably at recreating their experiment. What had happened to that initial doctor Bucky had told him about?

Bucky shifts in his sleep and Steve finds his attention drawn to the other man. He’s sleeping shirtless now, and Steve can see the extent of the damage that HYDRA’s wreaked. The tissue near his shoulder is scarred and knotted, pink and gleaming in places where it wasn’t allowed to heal properly. He wonders if constantly wearing a long sleeved shirt irritated the sensitive skin on his arm. There are so many questions that he has, and as he closes his eyes to try and force himself to sleep, for the first time in his life, he realises he might not want all the answers to them.

* * *

I have a [tumblr!](everydayindian.tumblr.com) Come say hi if you want and we can talk about puppies, food and stucky!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Bucky doesn't have his metal arm in this verse. Also, while the serum does exist in this series, it's not permanent. Basically, the extent to which powers exist in this verse is pretty limited.  
> Bucky's behaviour with his scars is based on mine and a couple of other people I know. It's a lot easier to hide it and/or brush it off than have to explain it, because usually it's not something that can be fixed.  
> Updates may be more sporadic from now (real life is a pain) but I'm trying to write regularly because it's really good therapy for when I have a crap day (of which there have been many recently).


	6. Chapter 6

His attempts at discreetly rubbing away his migraine fail to go unnoticed by Steve who frowns disapprovingly at him. Bucky groans internally when he places Michael down and heads over to him, hands on his hips, looking for all the world like an overprotective mother hen.

Although Bucky had slept longer than Steve, who looked like he’d barely closed his eyes, he’d still woken up with a terrible headache that he couldn’t explain. It hadn’t disappeared even with two cups of industrial strength coffee and it had left him nauseous enough to only be able to pick at the breakfast Steve had set out for him. It wasn’t something that would stop him, but it was irritating. He knew he should have listened to Steve and taken some aspirin for his migraine.

But he couldn’t. Ever since he’d gotten out of HYDRA, he’s avoided taking drugs as far as possible. It’s going to be hard to explain to Steve all things considered, but he’s been forced to take so many drugs against his will, that it’s hard for him to swallow a pill without gagging. And till now, since he’s either pulled solo missions or he’s teamed up with Natasha, it’s never been a cause for concern.

They’d been invited by some of the parents to join them when they took their kids down to the playground near the forest. Bucky’d been reliably informed that although the playground was terrible during the night-time, it was a lovely place for the children during the day. The kids had taken to Steve almost instantly and when they’d arrived, several of them had run up to him and grabbed his hands, tugging him towards the play-area. He’d looked back at Bucky, torn between wanting to join the kids and knowing that they needed to sweep the area while they still had a chance.

Bucky smiles at him, leaning close and whispers into his ear, “Go ahead punk, it’d look suspicious if we didn’t play with the kids first. Just don’t tire yourself out too much.” He presses a chaste kiss to Steve’s cheek, who flushes as some of the kids giggle and retreats back to sit down with Deborah.

They laugh at how Steve is being tugged around by kids who barely come up to his knee and Deborah passes him a bowl of chips, smiling at him. “He’s a real sweetheart isn’t he? The kids adore him.”

“He loves kids too, he won’t say it too much, but he wants kids.”

“But you don’t?”

“Not just yet. I don’t think I’m ready for kids you know. But Steve’ll make a great dad someday.”

Fixing him with a knowing look, she says, “You’ll make a pretty good father you know? Don’t sell yourself short.”

He picks at his chips and ignores the growing pain in his head, but it doesn’t fade and now Steve’s here.

The other man sits down next to him and asks, “Is your head still bothering you?” keeping his voice soft.

“I’m fine punk.” He says, noticing how some of the others have turned to look at them. But Steve’s not buying it, and before he knows it, he’s sipping juice and nibbling at a sandwich, with Steve curled up against his side.

By the time he’s done, he feels a lot better although he knows he’d benefit from some medication or a long nap. Instead, he squeezes Steve’s waist and pulls himself up, telling the others he’s going to take a walk. He can hear Steve excusing himself before following him. Slowing down, he allows Steve to catch up and, acting on a whim, he grabs Steve’s hand and intertwines their fingers.

“You’re sure you’re feeling alright?” Steve asks warily as they head down a quiet pathway that’s lined by trees.

“It’s nothing that I can’t handle,” he replies quietly, tugging Steve closer and looping an arm around his waist. Leaning close, he murmurs, “I have a scanner in my pocket. At the end of this path we’ll be close enough to the mine that we’d be able to run a remote scan on the area. Just act natural and follow my lead. Before we go any further though, what are your thoughts on kissing?”

“I’m not entirely adverse to it, but I’m not fond of the idea of being potentially filmed,” says Steve as he catches on.

“Chin up pal, this is the best we’ve got right now.” Bucky’s faking his bravado, but he’s just as terrified as Steve is, not just of how many ways the mission could go wrong but at the prospect of kissing Steve. They’ve kept the couple act to a bare minimum so far and although they’ve fallen into an easy partnership, this is a whole new level of intimacy. As he gets nearer to the end, he pretends not to notice that Steve’s hand has gone clammy and leans down again. “We don’t have to do this you know. If it makes you that uncomfortable, I mean, I don’t want to pressure you into something you don’t want to do. I could probably lean on the tree myself and place the sensor.”

“It’s fine,” Steve says distractedly, looking at something out of the corner of his eye. “It’s just that the first time I kiss you, I wish it didn’t have to be for show.”

Bucky stills and blinks, “Wait what?”

Steve turns pink when his words catch up with him, and he opens his mouth to explain himself, but Bucky cuts him off and closes the distance between them. It’s far from perfect. His lips are chapped and Steve manages to bang their noses together at one point, but none of that matters to Bucky because he thinks he’s died and gone to heaven. 

It’s soft and slow and sweet and Bucky finds himself melting into the kiss, letting Steve manoeuver him onto a nearby tree. He breaks the kiss and leans up to bite at Bucky’s ear lobe, prompting a shiver from the other man. “Put the scanner here,” Steve whispers, “There’s a camera down that way, we’re almost in the blind spot of the camera. Your left hand is in the blind spot though so you’ll be able to place it without anyone noticing.”

Steve clumsily takes over again and where he lacks in finesse, he more than makes up for in enthusiasm. By the time Bucky’s done securing the scanner in a hollow in the tree trunk, both their faces are flushed and their lips are red and swollen. He gently pushes Steve off and presses their foreheads together, adjusting the collar of Steve’s shirt. “We should head back,” he says, “Before anyone comes down here to find us.”

He presses one last peck to Steve’s lips before pulling him away.

When they reach back to the picnic area, he hopes for the most part they don’t look too debauched but Deborah takes one look at the pair and grins widely. “You two are insufferable,” but she’s laughing and pouring them some more juice.

Before long, they excuse themselves and head home. On the way back Steve asks, “So, are we going to talk about what happened?”

“Maybe, probably. But not right now. I just got a text from SHIELD. We’re to expect back-up from HQ by tomorrow. But I will say this, that I don’t want what happened today to be a one-time thing.”

Tony comes over in the evening and helps them set up the scan. Steve’s amazed at how his fingers fly over a virtual keyboard and he jumps when Tony starts talking to the space around him which, to his surprise, begins to talk back. Noticing his surprise, Tony explains, “That’s JARVIS, I suppose the simplest way for me to explain him to you, would be that he’s an AI. But he’s so much more advanced than that and simply reducing him to an AI would be an insult to him.”

“Did you…did you create him?” Steve asks amazed.

“Of course I did. Do you honestly think I’d trust anyone else with this?”

“That’s amazing,” he breathes out and Tony looks faintly flattered at the look of amazement on Steve’s face.

“You’re not too terrible yourself kid,” Tony says, returning back to his virtual keyboard, swiping between screens. “For your first major mission, I’d say that you’re handling yourself pretty well. I’d probably have panicked a lot more if I’d been in your shoes.”

He scuffs his shoes nervously, he felt like a schoolboy in front of his childhood hero, and says, “Thanks Tony, but I can’t take all the credit for that. Bucky’s the one who’s been looking out for me.”

“From what I hear, you’ve been looking out for him too. I’m sure SHIELD’s noticed too, Commander Grumpy doesn’t compliment people lightly. Every time he sees me, he still threatens to shish-kebab me if I keep messing around with SHIELD tech.”

He’s saved from having to reply to that when the screen in front of him beeps, indicating that the scan’s begun. “Well that’s that. I’m going to estimate that without interferences we should have a pretty good idea of what’s under there in the next 24 hours. That should give us a better idea of what to do next.”

“How detailed will the information that we receive be?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” Tony asks, fingers pausing in the midst of a stream of programming.

“Will it tell about the number of people in there?” _Will it tell us if Bruce and Kyle are alive?_ He wants to ask.

Hands clenching for a brief second, Tony slips into his carefree persona again, “It’s detailed enough.” He lets his eyes rove over his surroundings searching for anything to distract him from Steve’s question and he stops at their coffee machine. He makes an affronted noise and looks horrified at Steve.

“Is that your coffee machine?”

“Uh yes?”

“It’s horrible! I’m so sorry, we need to fix this at once.”

He starts to prod at it but before he can dismantle it completely, Bucky stops him. “Tony, you really _don’t need_ to upgrade the coffee maker. Really, it’s ok. I think we’re ok if it doesn’t tell us the weather and shoots laser beams out of its nozzles.” He ignores Steve’s confused look and delicately picks the offending article out of Tony’s hands, placing it back on the counter.

Tony stays for dinner before heading back to own house, despite Steve’s protests. Bucky walks him home this time, and by the time he’s back, his migraine is returning.

“He’s getting nervous,” he says softly to Steve, “He’s worried about Bruce.”

Steve lets the plate he’s holding sink into the soapy water and grips the edge of the sink tightly. “Bucky, what if we’re right? What if they’re experimenting on Bruce? What if he’s not ok?”

The returning silence is enough to make Steve want to scream.

He leans back against Bucky on the sofa and lets him wrap an arm around his waist. Bucky absently drums out a tune on his hip bone and Steve traces out meaningless patterns on the back of Bucky’s hand.

Breaking the silence, Bucky says, “You’re really good with kids you know?”

Letting out a puff of laughter, Steve smiles bitterly, “My mom used to work as a nurse. Sometimes when I was little, I’d go in and play with the kids in the paediatric ward or look after the other nurse’s kids. It gave me something to do after school.”

“Didn’t you want to play with your own friends though?”

“What friends?” Steve asked wryly, “I was a scrawny, asthmatic kid who was always sick. I couldn’t keep up with the boys my age so there was no way I could hang around with them and we were at that awkward age where girls and boys didn’t really get along, so there was no way the girls wanted me in their circles.”

“It must have been lonely for you,” Bucky says gently, pushing a strand of hair away from Steve’s face.

“I had my mom.” He says stubbornly, “She was all I needed.”

“Your dad died when you were little didn’t he?”

“He as good as.” There’s something on Steve’s face, something fierce and dark, and Bucky’s heart twists because it doesn’t belong there.  “When I was about three, my dad left. It didn’t make a huge difference, he was already a deadbeat dad but it broke my mom’s heart and I don’t think she ever really recovered from that. To me, he’s dead. I never found out what happened to him and by the time I was old enough to understand what had happened, I no longer wanted to find him. But I always promised myself, when I had my own kids, I’d be a better dad than him.”

“You’re going to be an amazing father,” Bucky says and presses a kiss to his forehead. “Trust me, I know these things.”

“Oh you do, do you?” His voice is thick with amusement.

“It’s a secret spy thing, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that would we?”

“No,” Bucky says softly, “We wouldn’t.”

Their doorbell rings early the next day and Steve’s met by one very cheerful Phil Coulson. Dressed in a sweater vest and slacks, he holds up a hideous green _thing_ and smiles cheerfully at Steve, who blinks at him and says, very intelligently, “Um.”

“Uncle Phil, hey, you’re kind of early aren’t you? Thought you’d get here only around lunch time, come on in!” He waves at some of the neighbours who stroll by before closing the door and hissing at Coulson, “What is this?” pointing at the green monstrosity in his hands.

“It’s a tea-cosy. What kind of uncle would I be if I didn’t show up with appropriate house-warming gifts?”

“I’m not sure I want to know where you got this from.” Bucky sighs and rakes a hand through his hair, before his face turns serious again, “So you’re our back up?”

“Something like that,” he turns to Steve, “This is excellent tea, thank you Steve.”

“There’s no way the board is going to allow for a direct attack on HYDRA’s top brass without more information. I’m here to oversee the scanning and the situation before we make a call and decide what to do. Not to mention the fact that I’ve got the extracted details from the hard disk you sent us.”

“Anything of importance?” Steve asks.

“Nothing too relevant. He seems like a normal kid. And it was a family computer, so we could scan the family’s activity but even then, there’s nothing that would call attention to the boy being a target for HYDRA. Family’s credit score is clear. Dad’s a banker and mom’s a stay-at-home wife. There’s no indication at all that the boy had even met anyone in HYDRA. And like Bucky mentioned, his medical records were almost completely clean. He’s barely had two or three illnesses, each treated by different doctors.”

Using their tablet, he pulls up some images and shows them the results of the data extraction.

“Here’s the medical records, this kid was almost disgustingly healthy.”

“Wait a second, can you go back a slide?” Steve asks, eyes widening at something he’d seen on the previous page.

Phil swipes his hand over the screen and looks enquiringly at Steve. “Is that the name of his doctor?” Steve asks, pointing at a name on the screen.

“Yes, well at least one of them. I think Kyle saw this doctor about two years ago when he came down with a viral fever. Why?”

“I know him,” Steve says and he’s already typing away at his own laptop, “Dr. Abraham Erskine. He was an old German doctor that my mom knew. He used to treat me for free sometimes when we couldn’t afford a regular visit to the hospital. Remember how I said that when I went to college, a doctor helped me to sort out my health a lot? Well that was Dr. Erskine. I never questioned it at the time, but he gave me supplements, which he said were protein, but now I’m not so sure, because of how well they worked. He disappeared around the time SHIELD recruited me, in fact I never got to tell him that I was working with you. Back then I never gave it a second thought, but now, he’s shown up again where HYDRA is.”

“That’s a lot of conjecture Rogers,” Coulson says, “Even if it is the same man, it could just be a coincidence.”

“Well,” Bucky cuts in, “Where’s Erskine now?”

“From what we can tell, he’s left town.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asks sharply, catching the pause in Coulson’s voice.

“Around the time we’re projecting that HYDRA showed up, Erskine seems to have vanished. Apparently he gave his notice at the clinic he was working in and disappeared.”

“And this doesn’t seem fishy to you at all?” Steve asks, tapping at his keyboard quickly.

“Initially, no it didn’t. There are a lot of reasons why a random doctor could decide to leave his practice. In light of what I’ve learned now, it does seem a little more interesting. I’ll get someone on it immediately, see if we can find out where he was staying and who his immediate family is.”

“Already done that,” Steve says, “His next contact is listed as a Sally Erskine, his daughter who lives in New York with her husband and three kids. I doubt Erskine’s been with her though. I’ve already pinged the SHIELD Intel agency in New York and they’ll tell me if they’ve seen him in the last six months. As for his address, he was living pretty close by but according to the property details, he sold the house around the same time that he decided to leave. There’s no forwarding address listed, but something made him decide to leave town.”

“What about the results of the scans of the mine?” Coulson asks Bucky.

“They’re still running, we’ll get the results back in another five hours approximately.

“And Zemo’s still out there isn’t he? As far as we can tell, he’s the weakest link we have right now.”

Bucky looks incredulous, “You’re not serious, you want to convince him to turn on HYDRA?”

“We’re keeping it as a possibility. He’s the only one in there who’s joined because of a mistake and with how intelligent he is, I have little doubt that he’s already caught on, but now he’s stuck. We simply need to offer him the right incentive.”

He stands up and brushes imaginary crumbs off his lap, before nodding at Bucky. “Come on, give your uncle a tour of the town. And make sure we pass by Zemo’s house. Fury wants to start round the clock surveillance of his house too, he thinks Zemo might have more of a direct role in the kidnappings than we assume. Steve, keep searching for any information you can about Erskine. I still don’t know if this is something to consider, because a single value doesn’t make a trend, but at the same time, we can’t afford to ignore any piece of information.

Steve’s distracted as he washes up the dishes and grimaces as he ends up splashing himself with water. Groaning he heads up to their bedroom to change when his phone vibrates. Pulling it out of his pocket, his eyes widen when he realises that the scan has already completely itself. He tugs on the first sweatshirt he can find, noting in the back of his mind that it seems a bit looser than usual. It’s only when he catches sight of his reflection in the monitor, he realises that he’s tugged on Bucky’s sweatshirt, which is why it hangs loosely off his shoulders and he needs to roll the sleeves up.

He tells himself that the only reason he doesn’t change out of the sweatshirt is to save time. It has nothing to do with the scent of Bucky’s cologne that clings to the article of clothing.

Shooting off a text to Bucky telling him that the scan was complete, he starts when someone rings their doorbell. He’s not nearly as surprised as should be when he sees Tony standing there, who lets himself in, casually swinging a bag of bagels. “Do you like bagels, I hope you like bagels. Before you ask, yes I’ve had a shit-ton of coffee and no, I don’t care. Scan’s done isn’t it? Let’s take a look at the results, and yes I left myself a back door into the program, it’d be pretty silly of me not to.”

Steve’s left blinking as Tony heads up to the work station and he wonders if this is going to become a regular occurrence. The scan confirms what they had assumed, they can see the HYDRA base. As Tony overlaps different scan images and filters, they’re able to see almost directly into the base and Tony points out the various security measures and levels that he can see. By the time Bucky and Coulson return, they’ve worked out more than a rough layout of the entire cell and can give Coulson an estimate of the number of people in there, both HYDRA agents and captives.

But Bucky’s face looks drawn and he pulls Steve aside as Coulson continues talking to Tony.

“Buck, what’s wrong?” Steve asks worriedly.

“We passed by a couple of people on the way back. Overheard them talking about it.”

“Talking about what?” Steve says.

Bucky puts both his hands on Steve’s shoulders and forces him to look into his eyes, “Stevie you need to promise me you won’t beat yourself up over this.”

“I can’t promise you anything unless you actually tell me what happened,” he says, getting increasingly frustrated.

“Last night, HYDRA took another child. They took Michael.”

* * *

I have a tumblr! This is [me!](everydayindian.tumblr.com) I like to reblog pictures of puppies and pretend I have my shit together. Come say hi! I don't bite (unless you want me to).

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to self- Writing certain scenes in a university library can be awkward.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's left comments and kudos! It's extremely motivating and been a wonderful push to keep me going!


	7. Chapter 7

_“Brooklyn Home for the Elderly, how may I help you?”_

“Uh, hi. I’m calling for Room 251, to speak to Mrs. Sarah Rogers?”

The woman on the other side of the phone sounds disinterested and tired, but then again it is early on a Sunday morning, he assumed not too many people call at that time of the week or are even awake at this time. The receptionist chews her gum noisily as she taps at her keyboard and Steve feels his annoyance grow at the clicking noises over the phone.

Bucky comes out of the shower, towel draped over his shoulders, wearing only a pair of boxers. He’s rubbing one end of the towel through his damp hair and Steve ignores the way a drop of water traces a path down his sternum. He drums his fingers impatiently on the side table next to his bed watching as Bucky pulls a t-shirt over his head, and drops on the bed next to him, staring at him inquisitively.

He rolls his eyes when the woman finally returns to the phone and says, “Who should I say is calling?”

“Her son, Steve.” He says firmly, trying to keep himself from snapping.

“Alright, I’ll transfer you over. Just one moment please.” The line beeps and after a few seconds someone picks up the receiver, and a frail voice sounds through the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Hi ma.” Steve says, suddenly thankful for Bucky’s hand on his hip. He wonders absently if Sarah is going to recognise him today.

“Steven Grant Rogers, there you are! It’s been ages since you bothered to call your poor mother. I’ve been worried about you and so has your friend, although I can’t place his name. Lovely young gentleman who works with the soldiers.”

“That’s Sam, ma”, he gently reminds her, “And I’m sorry I haven’t called. I thought Sam told you that something came up with work.”

“Oh Stevie,” she sighs, “It’s always work with you. Are you still working at that strange international company?”

“Still am, just the same as it always was. And I know I haven’t had a lot of time to spend with you, but I’m thinking of taking some time off after this project. I could come there for a bit, spend some time with you.”

He could hear her settle down on her bed, exhaustion already starting to creep into her tone. “That sounds lovely dear. But you need to slow down, I worry about you. Don’t try and lie to me,” her voice surprisingly clear all of a sudden, “You’ve been working harder than you need to for me, but when are you going to find someone to settle down with? You can’t work forever you know.”

“I’m fine ma I promise. And I’ve started seeing someone,” he says on a whim, knowing how happy it’ll make her, at least for today, at least as long she remembers, “I was thinking of bringing him round the next time I came to visit.” Bucky’s hand rubs a slow circle on his waist and Steve lets his free hand rest atop of it.

“That’d be lovely dear,” Sarah says quietly, “I would love that. You never bring anyone to see me.”

“I bring Sam over,” he protests half-heartedly and there’s silence on the other end for a few minutes before she replies hesitantly, “Who’s Sam, Stevie? I don’t think I’ve ever met him.”

“I…You’re right ma, I must have gotten it wrong.” The conversation ends quickly after that and as he says good bye he tells her that he loves her and pretends he can’t hear how exhausted she is. Placing his cell phone down, he rests his hand over his eyes for a few minutes.

Bucky squeezes his other hand and asks, “How is she?”

“About the same as usual.” He replies, “But she’s losing her memory and she gets tired faster. It’s just… she was always so strong you know? When I was a kid, she was my favourite superhero, she did everything without ever complaining once. It’s hard for me to come to terms with this, to watch her disappear before my eyes.  And I feel guilty, because I can’t ever spend enough time with her. I know I need this job to pay her medical bills, but I barely ever get leave to visit her. When I started out, I used to make it a point to visit her at least once a week. But now, there’s so much work to get done.”

“Sam and Riley go and visit her for me. Sam looks after her a lot, makes sure she doesn’t worry or get worked up. But I feel like the worst son in the world, because what kind of a terrible son can’t even be bothered to visit their own mother. And the worst is sometimes, she doesn’t know who I am. Her mind’s stuck in the past, so she remembers her son as the tiny, asthmatic kid who used to get in fights. When she sees me now, she sees a complete stranger.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t think there’s anything he could say. Instead, he provides Steve with silent support and he says softly, “You know, after all this is done, when this mission is over, I’d love to come and meet your mom with you. She sounds like an amazing woman, though I wouldn’t expect anything less from the woman who raised you.”

He smiles at Bucky, and leans back on the headboard. He lets himself slip into an imaginary world, where he can take Bucky to meet his mother as his real husband, and not as a product of an undercover mission. Bucky disappears from the room and reappears five minutes later with a steaming mug of tea in his hand, which Steve takes gratefully and lets Bucky settle down next to him. Bucky gives him some time to collect himself, and by the time Steve’s done with his tea, he’s ready to get back to work.

“What’s our plan of action for today?” he asks.

“Coulson’s out already, he’s going to drop by Zemo’s house again and get another sensor installed nearby. He’s also heading out to the city council building to see if he can get his hands on Pierce’s details to see if there’s anything he can find. As for us, from the look in your eyes, I feel like we already have a plan for today.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Steve says sheepishly.

“Planning on filling me in?” Bucky asks.

“So the New York Intel department replied a couple of hours ago. There’s no sign that Erskine even entered the city let alone went to stay with his daughter, which seemed slightly strange to me.”

“Really? I thought he’d have wanted to stay as far away as possible from her, because HYDRA would be able to find him that way.”

“He would have at least gone there to say good bye. Dr. Erskine loved his family, he used to have a photo of his kids up in his office when I was in college. No, something doesn’t add up here.”

Eyes narrowing, Bucky says, “You don’t think he ever left do you?”

“No, I don’t. And there’s only one way to test out that suspicion.”

That’s how the pair finds themselves outside of what was listed as Dr. Erskine’s address. The garden’s slightly overgrown, there are more weeds than plants and some of the shutters on the house are starting to get worn down, but other than that, the house is in fairly good condition. Steve tries knocking at the front door, but there’s no response.

“What do you think?” he says, looking over at Bucky. “I think there’s definitely something that isn’t adding up. There’s not a lot of dust in front of the door. Almost as though someone’s been coming and going from the building, which wouldn’t really fit in with our theory that he’s left and the house is supposed to be abandoned.” He looks around for a moment and then says, “Come on,” and he leads Steve around to the back of the house. He stops in front of a window, makes sure no one is around and pulls out a pen-knife from his pocket. Steve watches as he slides it between a gap in the window frame and wiggles it around expertly, hearing the click as the latch unlocks. Grinning at Steve, Bucky lifts the window frame open and ushers Steve inside.

Once they’re inside, Steve glares at Bucky, “Bucky breaking and entering is a criminal offense, not to mention the fact that we’re pulling this stunt in broad daylight. This isn’t the smartest thing we’ve done.”

“So is human experimentation. You need to look at things with a sense perspective, in this case, I’d say what we’re doing is perfectly acceptable. Especially because I think we might be onto something.” He nods towards the kitchen where there’s a plate of food. From here, Steve can tell that it’s fairly fresh.

“Someone’s been here recently,” Bucky says and reaches into his jacket pocket, slowly pulling out a gun.

“ ** _Bucky,_** ” Steve says exasperatedly.

“Can’t be too careful.”

There’s a thumping noise from the room above them and Bucky looks up, before moving towards the stairs. He walks in front of Steve and when they reach the next floor, they both stand still as they hear muted footsteps and a door close. Moving towards the door that they just heard close, Bucky carefully pushes it open, standing at a distance. There’s movement from inside, and for a second Bucky contemplates the possibility that they’ll be out-numbered, but when they look inside, they realise it’s just one person.

“Dr. Erskine!” Steve exclaims.

The man, a diminutive elderly man with large glasses crouches in the corner, holding an old pistol in front of him. As Bucky glances at the antiquated weapon that he holds in his shaking hands, he realises that the barrel is blocked and it’s more for show than anything. The man looks like he’s more likely to pass out from fear than actually harm anyone else.

He peers nervously at the pair who remain standing at the doorway, unwilling to move in any further and add to his fear. At one point, his eyes clear and he rasps out, “Steven? Is that you?”

“It is. We’re not here to hurt you, we promise. But we need your help.”

Dr. Erskine’s eyes sweep over Steve and then his gaze falls on Bucky. His response is somewhat unexpected, as he lets out a cry of dismay and the pistol falls out of his grasp, rolling uselessly to the floor.

“ _It’s you_.” He says, “I remember you. James Buchanan Barnes, you were one of the first subjects for their cursed Super Soldier program weren’t you? Yes, you were one of my early successes; I called you the Winter Soldier. But you escaped it didn’t you? You managed to escape their programming.”

He swallows nervously, looking at both of them, “I think, I think that you had better tell me why you’re here.”

By the time Steve’s finished, Dr. Erskine has gone pale. “You’re right, I didn’t think it’s a coincidence that so many HYDRA members had started flocking here. I’ve been very careful, hiding myself from HYDRA’s sight. But somehow, they must have caught wind of my presence here and followed me.”

“You threw everyone off your trail though,” Bucky says, arms crossed over his chest.

“Everyone except you two apparently.”

“If I’m completely honest with you, Steve is the one that noticed. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be here.”

Steve smiles bashfully at the two and replies, “Well, you always did believe in hiding in plain sight.”

Laughing, Dr. Erskine embraces Steve, “It is good to see you again. I always wondered what happened to you and your mother after I met you.”

“Dr. Erskine, I need to ask, but those protein supplements that you gave me when I came to you. What was in them?”

The man gets up and walks away, “If you have to ask me that, you know as well as I do what was in them.”

“Hang on a second,” Bucky snaps, “Even if it was the serum, it wore off for all of us. Why haven’t the effects worn off for Steve?”

“When HYDRA picked up the scent of my initial plans for the serum, it was a development plan to, as seen in Steven, help people with ailments, especially chronic illnesses, recover and to improve the quality of their lives. The version of the serum you received was never meant to last very long because it was never meant to work in the way HYDRA wanted it to work. However, I can only begin to apologize for what pain I’ve caused you and so many others.”

“I don’t think it’s fair for you to take the blame for what HYDRA’s done.” Bucky says firmly and refuses to let the doctor continue with his train of thought.

“Dr. Erskine,” Steve says, “Do you know why HYDRA has started taking children?”

“They seem to be labouring under the impression that it would be easier to manipulate the genome of a child. They’ve mistakenly also assumed that by taken children that are completely healthy, the effects of the serum would last longer.”

“What do you mean mistakenly?”

“Think about the intended purpose of the serum Steven. It was targeted at individuals who were ill. It’s not going to affect children who are healthy. That’s just not the way it was designed.”

“We need to report this back to SHIELD,” Bucky says, “And you’re going to need protection. It wasn’t too difficult for us to figure this out, it’s only a matter of time before someone in HYDRA pieces it together. Besides, your family isn’t safe. HYDRA is getting more desperate as time progresses. Sooner or later, they’re going to try and draw you out of hiding. I’ll speak to Coulson about assigning your family a security detail if need be. But we’re also going to need to evacuate you as soon as possible.”

He stops listing things off when he’s struck by a thought, “Do you have any records of how to replicate the serum?”

Grinning, Erskine replies, “The only formula for the serum is the one inside my head. I never wrote it down and in addition to Steve, there have only been five other people who have been treated with it. I decided after HYDRA that it was too dangerous for me to keep working on the serum and stopped its development. I never made any records of it and never allowed myself to talk about it to anyone.”

“So you’re the only one who knows how to create the serum. Dr. Erskine, the faster we get you out of here, the better.”

They’re midway to their home when Bucky gets a call from Coulson. He picks it up and says cheerfully, “Hey Uncle Phil, did you get lost on the way back from the grocery store?” The smile drops from his face and he swears under his breath before saying, “Yes sir. I understand. I’ll get down there at once.”

Hanging up, he looks at Steve, “There’s been a situation. I need to head down to the playground. Coulson’s not willing to talk about more on the phone but it sounds bad. You head back home. Tony’s going to meet you there and hopefully the two of you can coordinate Erskine’s extraction as soon as possible.” He presses Steve into a hug and reminds him to be safe before taking off.

Tony’s strolling up the sidewalk when Steve gets back and he offers him a cheery wave. Once inside, he says “Heard about Erskine. Don’t think anyone in SHIELD really expected that. There’s a recon team in a real flurry back at HQ because they don’t know what to do. We’re going to be coordinating from this end and if we’re lucky and they don’t pull any bureaucratic bullshit, we should be able to have him out by tomorrow.”

Steve notices Tony’s hands are shaking and he interrupts. “Tony have you eaten anything today?”

Pausing, the genius flounders for a second before he says, “I had a coffee this morning, with milk and sugar even.”

“Tony that doesn’t count as food. That much coffee can’t be healthy for you.”

“S’not my fault. Bruce used to handle most of the cooking. Actually, correction, Bruce used to handle all of the cooking.”

“Well, we have food here, and plenty of it. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t eat. I won’t take no for an answer.”

Tony laughs as he accepts the plate, “I can see why Bucky likes you. Oh don’t give me that look, of course I know Bucky likes you. The two of you are adorable. It’s sickening really. It’s a good look on the kid though. I haven’t seen him so relaxed in ages. He won’t admit it but what happened to him in HYDRA, he was having a hard time letting it go. Not that I blame him in the slightest.”

“When he first came back, we weren’t sure if we’d need to amputate his arm with how bad the damage was. Bruce actually handled a large chunk of his physical therapy, that’s how we all know each other. But emotionally, he was a mess. He refused to see a psychiatrist and he wasn’t eating or sleeping right. He was starting to waste away. But he looks better now, less likely to snap someone’s neck at least, which is always a good thing.”

“This is good food, no wonder Barnes didn’t want to grab take-out. I wouldn’t want to get take-out either if I could come back to food this good all the time.”

Amused, Steve asks him if he wants seconds.

By the time they finish dinner, there’s still no sign of Bucky or Phil and the pair begin their work on arranging Dr. Erskine’s evacuation. Just like Tony had predicted there was a lot of red tape and Steve gritted his teeth in frustration. He’s about five minutes from wringing someone’s neck when he’s struck by an idea. Fury had put a direct line to his phone on their home telephone and he decides to give it a try.

When Fury hears about the delay, he’s furious and tells Steve to call him back in ten minutes.

Well, that’s not exactly what he says, but once Steve takes out all the swearing, the threats to life and limb and the potential threat of being served up on a platter to an alien colony, that’s what he’s left with.

True to his word, after ten minutes, he and Tony are given the green light. It takes barely any time after that, and before he knows it, they’ve arranged Dr. Erskine’s extraction and Tony’s teaching Steve how to win at Minesweeper.

Tony declines his offer to stay the night, as he packs his things away and says, “It’s already strange that Bruce isn’t there. I like the familiarity of being able to sleep in our bed though, you know?”

At the door, he’s caught up with waving at Tony, so distracted that he doesn’t notice the figure crouched in the shadows across the street.

When he’s closed the door, his phone buzzes and he looks down. There’s a text from Bucky.

_On my way back. Don’t leave the house. Make sure everything is locked. Zemo’s missing._

He’s barely finished reading it when someone bangs at the door. Luckily he knows for a fact that everything is locked and bolted and there’s little to no chance of someone breaking in. But that doesn’t stop him from pulling out a small semi-automatic that they’ve tucked away in the living room for safe keeping. He switches off the safety and sends back a message to Bucky.

_Someone’s outside. Think it’s Zemo._

The response comes back almost immediately.

_Don’t engage under any circumstances. Coulson and I will be there within ten minutes. Do NOT engage._

He can almost feel the urgency seeping out of the message and he wonders what’s happened to make Bucky panic like this.

The banging gets louder and Zemo starts to shout through the door.

“I know you’re in there. Let me in! I’m armed. I’ll shoot you down if I have to. You’re friends with that monster aren’t you?”

 _He’s not letting up Bucky_ , he types back, _It’s only a matter of time before he starts to shoot_.

_Do not engage, you hear me Agent Rogers? That’s a direct order. We’ll be at your location in five minutes. Do not engage. Zemo is extremely volatile and dangerous and should not be approached under any situation._

_Understood sir._

_Stevie, listen, I’ll explain more when I get there. But right now you have to trust me. Zemo’s unhinged right now._

_What happened Buck?_

_He was ordered to execute Kyle_.

In the car, Bucky snaps at Coulson, “Can’t you drive any faster?”

Coulson glares at Bucky out of the corner of his eye and says, “While I under your concern, I’m still your superior Agent Barnes.”

“Fine, let me change that, can’t you drive any faster _sir_?”

Coulson doesn’t allow him the privilege of seeing him roll his eyes in exasperation. Sometimes he wished that Barnes remembered Agent Rogers could actually defend himself in combat. Although, he had to admit that Zemo unsettled him.

And if he was developing a soft spot for the kid, no one had to know.

* * *

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Note and Potential spoiler for the comic if you haven't seen the mess of it*
> 
> While I do have one side fic which deals with the events of civil war, I'm just putting it out there now, I will not and NEVER plan to write anything based off the latest train-wreck marvel released for the captain series. I'm sorry but disappointing little kid's for shock value is not ok in the slightest and neither is messing with something that is historically one of the biggest tragedies of our generation and the past generation.  
> The idea that making someone a Nazi and/or HYDRA for shock value is a disgrace. My grand-uncle fought in the world war when we were still Britain's colony.   
> I'm tired and angry with Marvel continually erasing so many minorities in their media and refusing to listen to what fans have to say.  
> (Feel free to disagree with me, I'm just really exhausted and annoyed).
> 
> Sorry for the rant! If you've hung around for this long, let me you know what you think of the new chapter! Comments always help :)


	8. Chapter 8

When the glass shatters he swears and ducks behind the sofa. He can hear Zemo entering the house, footsteps crunching over the shards of glass. There’s no sign of Bucky and Coulson and he can’t hear any cars approaching. He knows he was ordered to stay down, but it doesn’t look like he’ll have the liberty of that decision.

“I know you’re in here!” Zemo calls out.

Steve catches sight of Zemo’s reflection in their coffee table and his blood chills. The man’s face is red and his eyes are wide and unfocused with rage. He’s wearing a pale blue shirt that’s spotted with what appears to be blood and the ends of his pants are torn and frayed. His hands shake around his own gun as he notices that Zemo’s got the safety on his weapon switched off.

Zemo heads into the master bedroom and Steve can hear him rifling through their cupboards. There’s a small part of him that’s relieved he’s shut off the workstation and all the files are locked away for safekeeping. There isn’t much Zemo can get out of that room even if he tries. From what he can tell, Zemo isn’t after their files, and he isn’t sure if he’s relieved about that or not.

He’s brought out of his musings by the sound of the bathroom door thudding open. Zemo’s voice echoes on the bathroom tiles and Steve decides at that moment to make a break for it. He runs as fast as he can and he’s out of the front door, almost down the driveway when a bullet grazes his shoulder. He stumbles and whips around, eyes meeting Zemo, whose eyes narrow, before he raises his gun again, this time aiming at Steve’s heart.

“Tell me the truth!” he calls out, shaking with fury, “I saw you talking to Stark. You’re one of them aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve says, deciding to try playing the oblivious card for a bit longer. “Tony’s my neighbour, he came by to talk. I have no idea what you want.”

Judging from the look on Zemo’s face, he’s unimpressed by Steve’s barefaced lie.

“He’s responsible for my family’s death! And you’re friends with that… _that monster._ ”

Steve knows he’s treading on shaky ground here, but he needs to try, because this has the potential to turn very bad, very quickly.

“You’re from Sokovia aren’t you? I heard about what happened to your family and I am sorry. But you have to know, Tony isn’t the one responsible for what happened. It’s easier to blame him, but you’re one of the most intelligent men I’ve ever met, you have to know that he’s not the one at fault.”

“I went out to buy milk. And when I came back I didn’t have a family anymore. They were all gone, all because of one man’s pride. My son was going to turn seven in a week, my wife and I had been saving up for almost five months to buy him a bicycle like he wanted. We thought with that, he could go to the school in the village centre. We thought he’d have a future that way. Instead of a future, I had to plan for a funeral for him. Did you know, that there wasn’t enough of them left over to bury? I bet that they never put that in your news reports and articles did they? And all for what? For one man’s pride and arrogance.”

“You’re right, one man’s pride was behind it, but it wasn’t Tony’s. You know, deep down, that HYDRA was responsible for what happened that day. I don’t know when you figured it out, but I know that you know.”

Zemo scoffed, “Stop trying to save your friend. It’ll do you no good. I lost everything that day, for me, I’m as good as dead. I have nothing else to lose.”

Swallowing thickly, he tries to reason with him. “Really? And would killing Tony, the one who’s not at fault, change anything?”

“I had to endure a fate worse than death for decades!”

“And there are ways to make sure that the man responsible for this suffers the same. But what you’re doing, it will change nothing. And I have one question, what will your wife say when she meets you again. Do you think she will be pleased?”

At that Zemo falters and he looks unsure. Steve’s about to say something else when a car’s tyres screech loudly as a car slides to a halt.

“Zemo, put the weapon down!” Bucky’s voice rings out. He’s in front of Steve before he knows what’s happening and his eyes widen when he notices his shoulder, which has started to sting now.

“One move and I’ll shoot,” Bucky promises.

Startled and cornered, Zemo unsurely lifts his gun a fraction before someone else cuts in. “I think you’ll find, Herr Zemo, that you’re outnumbered.”

Somewhere in this mess, Coulson has managed to get behind Zemo and has his own weapon trained on Zemo’s head. “There’s no way that this ends well for you, not if you try to force your way out of here. However, we might be able to cut a deal for you. We’re willing to offer an exchange, amnesty for information. Much of what has happened today and in the past was not your fault. SHIELD understands that and does not want to penalise you for something that you weren’t in complete control of.”

Snorting, Zemo says, “I shot a young boy today. I hardly think that there’s much you can do for me there.”

“Answer me this, was it worth it? To take another child’s life?” Steve asks, “That boy could have been your son. At the very least I’m sure you can understand that. Today HYDRA was responsible for another innocent child dying. We can offer you some amnesty for that. And you can help us make sure that Alexander Pierce suffers a fate worse than death.”

“And trust me,” Bucky cuts in, his voice dark, “You’ll never forget the lives that you have taken. You can never escape from it, no matter how hard you try. That alone will be punishment enough for what you’ve done.”

“I can assure you Herr Zemo, that we won’t let you leave scot-free. However, they’re right. You can prevent this situation from getting a lot worse than it needs to. The choice is yours.”

A minute passes and Zemo continues to look conflicted, his fingers twitching over the gun. Suddenly, his shoulders drop and he lets out a laugh. The gun slips out of his grasp and clatters to the ground. Bucky darts forward when Coulson nods and kicks the weapon out of reach, before prompting Zemo to enter the house again.

Coulson picks up the gun delicately and tucks his own weapon into the holster on his trousers. As he and Steve re-enter the house, Steve asks, “Isn’t it kind of weird that no one came out? We can’t have been **_that_** quiet…”

“Kyle’s body was located near the river. This is a small town Agent Rogers. Something like that draws a lot of attention. When Agent Barnes and I left, it appeared as though half the city or more was there.”

“Did you find anything from Kyle’s body?” he asks.

“Dr. Erskine was right. The serum won’t work on children who are healthy. They’d definitely been experimenting on Kyle without much success. But it looks like Zola’s been trying to tweak the formula. Kyle’s body was, well let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if the CDC came up here.”

Eyebrows raised, Steve asks, “What do you mean?”

“There’ll be a report by tomorrow. We managed to get some samples to send to our labs for analysis and we’ll be procuring the body soon for a thorough autopsy. Not to mention that I’m sure the local paper will run a story on this and I’m willing to bet that it will be the headline piece. I’m going to call the Director and see what he says. If the experimentation is going as badly as it seems to be, we’re going to need to move in as soon as possible.”

They’re inside by this point. Zemo’s got his arms tied behind his back and Bucky’s surveying the broken window angrily.

“Your help and information will be greatly appreciated Zemo.”

“I could give you the wrong information,” he says, looking Coulson dead in the eye.

“You could, but I doubt that you will. After all, you of all people understand the severity of the situation, of how wrong experimentation can go.”

Zemo looks confused and Steve can’t say he blames him. He feels like he’s missing something. Catching the hesitant look on Zemo’s face, Coulson continues, “You did know, didn’t you? About the experimentation in Sokovia?”

The captive man jerks upright, face going pale. “Well, to be fair, we never released any information about that to the public so it’s not surprising that you didn’t know. I think there are only a handful of people in SHIELD who are aware of the exact nature of the Sokovia incident. Agent Barnes, Agent Rogers, you’ll have to forgive me, were not among the people who knew.”

“Sokovia was among the first large scale cells for experimentation with HYDRA. They had a ready supply of subjects and were far enough from SHIELD’s radar and other governmental watch-dogs that they could experiment freely without the fear of being caught. Except that the testing went badly in Sokovia. The serum that they were working on was truly in its prototype stage in those days and several people died. More people than they could easily account for. People were dying faster than they could safely dispose of and suddenly, HYDRA found that the Sokovian cell was becoming too much of a liability. As far as they were concerned, they weren’t able to create even a single successful version of the serum. When SHIELD began to take interest in the proceedings, they knew it was time to leave. Which is why they decided to get rid of the base, and when Tony planned on the exposition, as a means of gaining public trust, they knew it was the perfect time to strike.”

Zemo’s pale and Steve doesn’t even know if the man is breathing anymore.

“You have no proof of what you’re saying.” He spits out, “There was never anything about that.”

“Well,” Coulson says lightly, “We couldn’t really reveal anything about potential human experimentation could we? We had enough problems in those days, something like that would have caused pandemonium. But we do have proof. HYDRA never really understood the basis of the serum, which meant that they weren’t able to make the most of what they had. In the long run, that’ll prove to be an advantage for us, and indeed, they never realised but a pair of subjects that they were experimenting on actually responded to the serum. Since HYDRA was expecting enhancements as opposed to healing, they failed to recognise it. But in fact, both the children, twins as it turned out, both suffered from a rare blood disorder. And the serum cured them completely. They managed to escape during the chaos that happened during the exposition day and were picked up by SHIELD agents. It’d be pretty hard for them to lie quite so convincingly about some of the things they brought up.”

Zemo’s head is bowed and for one second Steve feels sorry for him. But before he can say anything else, Bucky’s hand rests on his shoulder and he’s being gently ushered out of the room.

Bucky tugs him into the master bedroom and sits him on the bed, before heading into the bathroom to grab the first aid box that they’ve kept under the sink.

“I’m fine Buck,” he calls out, although he knows it’s in vain.

“ _Don’t even start with me_ ,” Bucky calls out warningly, “And take your shirt off. The last thing we need is the fabric clinging to your wound.”

“That’s really forward of you pal, usually a guy’s got to take me out to dinner at least before he gets me out of my clothes.” Steve can feel Bucky’s exasperated glare through the wall. “He peels the shirt off slowly, “Honestly, it’s just a flesh wound, more of a scratch than anything. I can barely feel it.”

“Fine, we’ve established that you’re as tough as nails. How about you let me do this for **_my_** peace of mind?”

He sits on the edge of the bed and carefully grips Steve’s arm, swabbing gently at the wound with antiseptic. Steve involuntarily lets out a hiss at the sting and Bucky pulls his arm away, frowning apologetically at the man. “It’s fine Buck, don’t worry about it.”

As Bucky wraps a bandage around his arm, he says, “That’s easier said than done isn’t it? When I saw you today, with Zemo pointing his gun at you, I think my heart nearly gave out. Because what if, what if he shot at you? And don’t get me wrong punk, I’m not underestimating you in the slightest, but you and I both know that when someone’s as unstable as he was today, there’s no way to predict what’s going to happen.”

“So what do you want me to do Bucky?” Steve asks tiredly. Now that’s the adrenaline’s started to wear off, he feels exhaustion sinking in, and his arm throbs. All he wants to do is curl up in a small ball and go to sleep.

Bucky looks as tired as he feels, and Steve remembers belatedly that he and Coulson had just come from Kyle’s body. He rests his head in his hands and he says, “I don’t know. I wish I could tell you to be more careful, but I know that’s redundant and more than a little pointless. I just… I just wish there was a way that I knew you’d be safe.”

There’s silence in the room and Steve hopes that Bucky can’t hear how loudly his heart is beating.

“Bucky, I mean… that’s…”

“Not what you signed up for is it?” he says bitterly.

“I’m not running for the hills am I?” Steve responds firmly. At that Bucky lifts his head and stares at him, his eyes wide.

“This may not be what I expected, but I don’t want to let it go. It’s not the best time for us to be trying to figure out what exactly **_this_** is, but at the same time, I don’t want to ignore it. But you’re right Buck, as much as I want to believe that there’s some way I can keep you completely safe, I know that’s not possible. We just have to be as careful as we can and keep going.”

“You’re so annoyingly level-headed sometimes, I actually want to throttle you and wipe that grin off your face,” Bucky says with a tired smile on his face, letting his head drop onto Steve’s good shoulder.

“I don’t know, that sounds sort of painful. I can think of much more enjoyable ways for you to keep me quiet.” Steve says, trying and failing to look innocent.

Cackling, Bucky lets his head tip back and Steve marvels at how much younger Bucky looks when he lets himself relax. “You little shit, don’t be surprised if I take you up on that offer.”

Before he can respond, they hear footsteps on the stairs and Bucky sits up straight, the moment broken. There’s a short knock on the door before it opens and Tony enters. There are bags under his eyes and his hair is a mess. His eyes are red-rimmed and Steve wonders idly if he’s been crying.

“Hey, Barnes. Rogers. There you guys are. Agent sent me up here, I mean; I don’t think he wanted me down there with Zemo. Because you know, Zemo doesn’t like me too much. Which I mean, hey, understandable. So here I am.”

“Tony how many cups of coffee have you had?” Steve asks, noticing how disjointed his speech is.

“None!” Says Tony indignantly.

Bucky’s eyes narrow. “Ok, new question. How many caffeine tablets have you had?”

Tony opens his mouth and then closes it again. He wiggles his fingers around a bit, before replying, “I’m going to go with, _you probably don’t want to know_.”

“At the end of this mission, I’m going to have high blood pressure and less hair.” Bucky grumbles, before getting off the bed and stretching. “Stark, sit your over-caffeinated ass down on the bed and keep Stevie company while I get you a glass of water. If you so much as move while I’m gone, I’m telling Natasha what happened to her Widow Bites.”

“That is cruel and unusual punishment,” Tony whines. But he sits down next to Steve, his lower lip sticking out, reminding Steve of a kid who’d been berated by his parents.

When Bucky leaves, Tony picks at a stray thread on the comforter and says, “Honestly, spies these days. They get so attached to their weapons. All I wanted to do was examine the aerodynamic factor of her Widow Bites and possibly improve them. How was I supposed to know they’d explode?”

“Uh… Tony, did Natasha say it was ok for you to experiment on them?”

“She didn’t say no, it’s all semantics really.” He says, waving his hand. That’s when Steve notices how badly his hands are shaking.

“You heard about Kyle didn’t you?”

“ _Heard about him_?” he laughs, but it comes out broken, more like a sob. “I saw him. The serum completely failed. It looked like he’d gone a round with a blowtorch. I’m terrified, because if that’s what the serum did to him, then what about Bruce. It’s close to a month, and I still don’t know if he’s ok, if he’s alive.”

“Tony, I…”

“Don’t. This isn’t your fault, neither is it Barnes’. There’s nothing that can be done now except to get Bruce back, however that may be. Judging by how things are going, we’ll end up storming the base soon. And when that happens, I’m going to make sure I’m doing as much as I can to help.”

“This may not be our fault, but we’re going to do what we can to help.”

“He’s right you know,” Bucky’s voice cuts in. He’s got a glass of water in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, which he hands to Steve. “Bruce is a part of our weird SHIELD family as much as you are. And we tend to not let family go very easily. Coulson’s on the phone with HQ. Looks like we’ll be moving in tomorrow night. Zemo’s going to be under house arrest for now, but we don’t want to keep him under our custody to avoid suspicion. The less HYDRA knows about our involvement, the better.”

“I’m going down, there’s going to be a conference call with Natasha and Clint. We’ll need to plan out and co-ordinate tac teams for the strike tomorrow. Tony, Coulson and Fury want to talk to you. They want to know if there’s any way to remotely deal with HYDRA’s defences. We’ll be splitting into two teams tomorrow. The main team is going to be attacking the actual base, but there’s going to be a smaller team which will branch off and enter Pierce’s home. This may be our only chance to get him and if we can shut him down, then we don’t want to lose that chance. Steve, we’re going to need you to co-ordinate with Intel and Tony and give us an idea of Pierce’s home layout and any defence blocks you can come up with. As far as possible, we need to get in without raising any alarm. We have the element of surprise on our side and Fury intends to maintain that as long as possible.”

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later,” Tony says, waving at Steve, “Don’t want to keep Colonel Grumpy waiting.”

Before he leaves, Bucky places his hand on Tony’s shoulder and squeezes it, before saying, “We’re going to do everything we can when we go in.”

“I know you will. Thanks Barnes.”

Once Tony’s left, Bucky rakes a hand through his hair before sighing, “I should go too. There are a lot of bases to cover before tomorrow. I’ll see you soon yeah Stevie?”

“Buck… before you go, there’s one thing… what you told Zemo, back there. You know that what you did, it’s not your fault right? You couldn’t control what you did. It’s like you told Zemo, you can’t change what happened. No matter how hard you throw yourself into your job.”

“I know that Stevie, it’s just… some nights, the voices of those people, they’re a lot louder than others. And I know I can’t change it, and it’s a lot better now, but this is my way of making amends.”

“That’s the thing Buck; you don’t need to make amends. You can’t make amends for this, because that wasn’t you. And I understand why you’re trying to do what you’re doing, but you need to promise me one thing. Promise me that you won’t do anything stupid tomorrow. Whatever happens will happen, but you can’t change the past no matter how hard you try. So don’t get yourself killed trying to.”

Bucky offers a mock salute and smiles, “I’ll do my best. Now come on punk, let’s go, it’s showtime.”

The next night, Steve presses a soft kiss to Bucky’s cheek before he leaves, “Be careful out there jerk.”

“You too punk.”

_Outside the playground, the bushes are alight with movement as a small team moves towards the entrance of the mine-shaft. About fifty feet from the entrance, the leader stops and holds up his hand, pulling the group to a halt. In his ear piece, Tony’s voice rings out._

_“ **Shields down in 3…2…1.** _

**_And you’re good to go._ ** _”_

_“Roger that Stark. Tac team 1 alpha is in position.”_

_At the base, Coulson and Fury stand in front of the command computer. The command centre is a hive of activity and all the computers are occupied with agents at work. “Copy that Alpha. Status report for the rest of tac team 1?”_

_Bucky and Natasha are heading the two remaining parts of the first tactical team, which is meant to storm the base. They’re positioned further back to avoid alerting HYDRA to their presence._

_“We’re in position and ready to move in.” Natasha says softly._

_“Same here,” Bucky agrees._

_“Barton, Rogers, what’s your status?” Coulson asks._

_“We’re ready boss, the main team’s ready to move in at any time.”_

_“Intel is ready to move in,” says Steve._

_“Alright then,” says Fury, “If all teams are in position. On my mark, we move.”_

_3…2…1_

**_Notes:_ **

Initially, the plan was to have Clint and Natasha storm the base together and then have Bucky go after Pierce, but I changed that last minute. My logic is that Bucky’s too emotionally involved to go after Pierce himself, which is why I changed that last minute.

This chapter was supposed to be up so much earlier but I hit a slump and it just didn’t come up. I’ve got the plotline for the rest of the story more or less drawn up, but I’m unsure how much of it will change.

I was also super tempted to retain the healing effects of the serum for Steve but vetoed it last minute.

Clint and Natasha will have slightly larger roles in the next chapter.

Also, so it’s not explicitly stated because I’m leaving this up to your interpretation, but in this story, Tony/Bruce is a thing. Just because I saw Avengers and I loved their dynamic. But I doubt that except for hints and one potential scene that I’m toying with I’d do anything more with the pairing.

Cookies to anyone who can guess the identity of the Sokovian twins.

As a final couple of points (because wow this is a long note, I love you if you read through this), the next updates will be sporadic just because, if nothing else, I’ve been in a terrible mood and don’t want to write half-heartedly. The original outline of the story was meant to have only 10 chapters, and as far as possible I’m trying to stick to that outline, but it might end up being a chapter or so longer.

The response to this was so much better than what I expected! Honestly, I planned to have one or two chapters only, but its spiralled way beyond what I imagined and I’m honestly not mad. I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter! Comments are appreciated and help me know where to improve!

 

* * *

 

I have a tumblr! I'd totally love it if you dropped by and said [hi!](everydayindian.tumblr.com) 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Possible Trigger warnings*
> 
> I've never done this before, so if I've missed out something let me know in the comments. But, there are mentions and semi-descriptive descriptions of violence and injuries, specifically of the captives. There are brief mentions of starvation and confinement, and unnamed character deaths. If that makes you uncomfortable avoid this chapter! I don't want anyone to feel bad when reading this.

“Barton, Rogers, what do you have?” Coulson asks.

Clint and his team have finished a sweep of the lower floor and Steve peers down from the top floor, signalling to Clint.

“Looks like the place is empty Sir.” Clint says, “There’s no one in the building and there are no signs that there was anyone here for the last few hours at least.”

“Set up a perimeter around the house, give me a twenty metres radius border around the building. I want to know if anyone unauthorised enters or exits.”

“You got it. We’ve got men forming a perimeter as we speak. Steve’s got Intel seeing if they can track Pierce’s movements.”

He’s barely finished his sentence when one of the agents working for Intel comes down the stairs with a file in his hands.

“Agent Rogers sent me down with this Sir.” He hands the folder to Clint, salutes him and heads back up.

“What are you looking at Barton?” Fury demands from the other end of the phone.

“I’m not sure yet, but it looks like a plan of the initial serum tests that HYDRA was running. There are photos and documents here that pretty clearly link Pierce and some of the main HYDRA members to their crimes. It’s probably the only copy of these documents that exists which would explain why Pierce had them in his personal study room.”

“Have someone scan and send them to me as soon as possible. Where’s Rogers?”

“Intel has already begun their extraction of the data files from Pierce’s computer.  Steve’s helping them back up the files. I’ll patch you in to him now.”

“ _There’s some serious encryption on these files. For whatever reason, it looks like we’ll need to get a certain amount of the decryption done here before we try to transfer the files to a storage device. From what we can tell, the data is volatile until some of the encryption is removed. Pierce is smart, there doesn’t seem to be any trace of the key on the system and he hasn’t used any recognisable algorithm. Which means we’ll need to use brute force to figure this out_.” Steve’s voice cuts in and Clint’s impressed by how put together he sounds. He can hear the sound of keys clacking in the background as the Intel team works to transfer data to headquarters.

“How long do you think you’ll need?” Clint asks, he wants to get that part of the operation done as quickly as possible and move on to the next stage. The one where they figure out where Pierce is and then capture him.

“Given the volume of the data, the amount of security and the volatility, I’m going to say we’ll need anywhere between half an hour to an hour. Any faster than that and we risk losing everything.”

Fury gives his approval. Clint nods when he hears the verdict. He’s not happy with it, but it’s faster than what he had expected and he knows that’s the best they’re going to get now.

“Romanov, Barnes what about you?”

“Looks like you boys definitely missed out on the party,” Natasha says quietly. “Barnes’ team is headed down towards the central command area and I’m within five metres of where the prisoners are kept. We’ve had minimal resistance so far. It looks like our attack wasn’t anticipated and as far as we can tell; we haven’t managed to trigger any alarms.”

“ _I’m almost at the central command room. Stark has run a thermal imaging scan of the area for us. We can account for Zola’s position. He seems to have left the command room and have re-entered the testing area.”_

“Don’t worry; we’re more than capable of handling him.” Natasha reassures Bucky.

“There are a couple of other people in the room that we can’t identify. Not to mention a crap-ton of security detail. That’s going to be fun getting around.”

“You can expect a proportional pay raise if you pull this mission off,” Coulson says, “Barnes, I’m not sure if you’re aware of the fact that Pierce wasn’t at his house like we had previously anticipated. That means, especially judging by the security detail…”

“That he’s inside that room.” Bucky finishes, his voice grim.

“You ok Barnes?” Natasha asks him, her voice just a note softer than normal. He knows what she means though. The idea of him coming to the base instead of Pierce’s house with Steve was to prevent him from being too emotionally compromised to handle a situation. But now it looks like he’ll have no choice in the matter.

“I’ll be fine. I can handle the situation.” He’s not sure how much he believes what he’s saying. Coulson gives the go ahead once Tony’s checked the area for any defence blocks that might surprise them at the last minute. He takes a deep breath and signals to his team, waving them in. He checks the grip on his gun once more and moves in.

* * *

 

Natasha feels sick to her stomach as she surveys the scene around her. It hadn’t been particularly difficult capturing Zola. He was, just as she had expected, a coward. The moment he had realised that he was outnumbered he had surrendered. There were only a few security guards that dotted the area and it was child’s play clearing them out.

But it had only taken them a little longer to find the captives that Zola was treating as ‘experimental subjects.’ Most of them were kids, she recognised one or two from the old files of missing people that she had seen in relation to HYDRA. They’re kept in reinforced cages, the doors held closed by locks, which her team has no problem breaking open. Some of them are shackled to the walls but she can clearly make out who’s been here longer, because they’re not restrained in any way. She can make out the exhaustion in their eyes even from a distance.

It doesn’t look like Zola is feeding them particularly well, many of them have a pinched appearance to their faces and their clothes hang loosely on their almost painfully thin frames. The ones who have been here for a shorter amount of time struggle when they see the SHIELD agents. It’s evident that they think they’re going to be experimented on again and are terrified.

“Go easy. They’re already scared,” she orders, “We’re not here to traumatise them any further.”

She scans the room and curses under her breath. There’s no sign of any of their adult captives. One of the slightly older children looks more coherent than the others and appears to be more awake. She crouches down to his level to reassure him and smiles at him. He glares at her distrustfully but she ploughs on.

“My name is Agent Romanov. We’re here to help you. But I need to know, are there any other people trapped here? We need your help if we’re going to save them.”

The boy looks hesitant for a second, looking at some of the other children who are being carried out.

“You won’t need to show me where they are or even wait here any longer, I promise. All you need to do is tell me where they are being held. I promise, we’re not going to let anyone else hurt you.”

“There’s another room, back there.” He says pointing. “We’ve never seen it. But I think they keep the adults in there. I’m not sure though.” He says, dropping his head.

“That’s alright.” Natasha says, smiling at him, “You’ve been a big help already.”

Standing up, she allows him to be escorted out by another agent before she issues her next set of commands. “I want all agents who aren’t evacuating children to follow me for immediate evacuation of any remaining captives.”

In her earpiece, she can hear Hill issuing orders for immediate hospitalisation and medical treatment of the victims. Most of the children will need immediate infusions with nutrients and antibiotic treatments to deal with the infections that have set in. Pushing that to the side, she focuses on the insistent beeping that’s coming through her earpiece now, an indication that someone is trying to have a conversation with her on a private line. There’s only one person that she knows who’d pull something like that during a mission.

“Stark?”

“Have you found him?” She’s surprised. For once, there’s no hint of the cocky, eccentric man she normally has to struggle not to throttle with her bare hands. Now all she can hear is a tired man who’s not sure what to do, worry seeping out of his voice.

“It looks like the children were being held in a separate room than the adults. Our studies show that there weren’t that many adults in comparison to the children that were captured, which explains why they seem to have been kept in a smaller room, potentially deeper underground.”

“Which is why our scanners didn’t pick it up.” Tony says, and Natasha hears something break in the background.

“Hey, you can’t be too hard on yourself for this,” she knows him. If he’s allowed to, he’ll blame himself for this fiasco. “We’ve got all the children being evacuated as we speak and we’re about two minutes away from locating the adults.”

“Alright, just… good luck you know?”

“Thanks Stark.”

She knows that two weeks from now, they’ll pretend that they’ve never had this conversation, but for now, she understands what he’s going through. For a split second, she tries to imagine what he’s feeling, what she would do if it was Clint that had been taken. She almost stumbles with the force of the wave of nausea that hits her. She resolves to bring Bruce back.

The door handle to the room is rusting away and it takes a lot more elbow grease than she wanted to get the door open. Once inside, the first thing that hits her is the smell. It’s musty, like there hasn’t been any fresh air allowed inside for ages. What hits her is the underlying stench of death and decay. Her stomach sinks at the implication of what that could mean.

“Rodriguez, give me a head count of captives now!” she barks.

“We’ve got ten containment cells in all ma’am. All occupied, seven alive.”

“Ma’am, we’ve found Agent Banner!”

He’s more than worse for wear. Bruce looks like he’s lost fifty pounds and his skin is dry and cracked. The skin on his lips is cracked and bleeding and there’s a wound on his head that’s worrying her, although it’s stopped bleeding, it’s clear that there’s been no medical treatment of any sort and she’s worried about it being infected. He’s got other wounds as well, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle and one of the injuries on his right arm is infected.

She places her fingers on his pulse point, ignoring the fact his eyes are bruised and swollen and almost breaks down when she feels a pulse. It’s weak and thready but it’s there.

“We need immediate evacuation and medical attention now!” She instructs the agents who are nearest to her. “We’ve got a SHIELD agent down!”

Once she’s sure that Bruce is in good hands, she calls Tony.

“He’s alive Tony.” She can hear the man sob with relief and she cocks her gun, instructing a woman she sees standing nearby to oversee the remaining evacuation, before she heads up to Bucky, if Pierce is there, he’s going to need all the help he can get.

* * *

 

When the team breaks down the door, they’re understandably met by a great deal of resistance. The security detail that Pierce has is huge and dedicated. But they’re also stupid and it’s easy to sidestep the chaos and chase after Pierce who’s quickly moving out of a side door.

He and two other agents rush down the narrow pathway, and Bucky barks out orders to the remaining agents who had secured the perimeter. There’s no way he’s letting Pierce slip through their fingers.

Pierce is fast, he knows the slippery dark tunnels better than Bucky does and he pulls himself out before they know it. He exhales when he’s out and then winces, as a bullet catches him. One of the agents from the tunnel fires at Pierce and the bullet clips in the leg.

Turning around, Pierce shoots. His aim is impeccable; he hadn’t been at the top of HYDRA for no reason. The bullet hits the agent and Bucky shields his eyes from the sparks. Pierce had fired an electro-gun, which had exploded on impact. The agent sinks down and Bucky closes his eyes briefly. Those weapons were beyond lethal and outlawed by almost every country in the world. The only advantage, he notes, with a grim satisfaction, is that the guns only come with one bullet.

“Pierce,” he calls out. “That’s enough. You’re surrounded and out-numbered. There’s nowhere for you to run, come peacefully and it’ll end better for us all.”

The elderly man throws his head back and burst out laughing. “Surrender? Not even in your dreams. Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked for what I’ve accomplished? There’s no way I’ll give up. The way I see it, it’s just me, you and that half-baked kid that’s tagging along with you. And you’re not exactly the perfect little SHIELD soldier are you?” He smirks and stares at Bucky, who tries to remain unaffected. In his ear piece, he can hear Natasha ordering him to hold his fire until she gets there. There’s no way that he could have recognised him, not after all these years, not when he had barely dealt with Bucky to begin with.

“You thought I didn’t recognise you? How could I not? After all, all those missions, all those targets successfully eliminated for HYDRA. I knew all about the enhanced super soldiers we had working for us. And I knew all about you. **_It’s good to see you again, Winter Soldier_**.”

* * *

 

Meanwhile in Pierce’s house, the Intel team is up to their necks in extraction work. Steve cracks his knuckles and stretches his arms above his head. “Found anything useful kid?” Clint asks, startling Steve, making him jump. “Make some noise would you Clint? Jesus, thanks for that mini heart attack. Anyway, depends on your definition of progress. We haven’t really made any progress as to where Pierce is, but there’s more than enough information here to incriminate him. Some of the encryption on his files is similar to a style that I’ve seen before. We should have the entire thing done fairly soon. Any news from Natasha and Bucky?”

“They found Bruce,” Clint offers, “He’s alive but Nat says it doesn’t look pretty. They’ve managed to find all the captives, but they’ve got a few who didn’t make it. Hill’s organised emergency medical support for them, but some of them, especially the kids, it’s going to be touch and go for a while. There’s no word from Bucky…hang on a second…” He presses a hand to his earpiece and frowns, ducking his head down.

“What do you mean?” he barks into the transmitter. Whatever response he gets can’t be too good because he scowls and swears.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks, straightening up in his chair.

“There’s good news and apocalyptically bad news.” Clint says. “The good news is that we don’t need to worry about where Pierce is. The not-so-good news is that he’s recognised Bucky.”

“Shit, Clint that’s bad. Is there anyone else with him?”

“I think he took back-up but it looks like one of the men is down. We can’t establish a link with him at all. Look,” he adds, catching the panicked look on Steve’s face, “Bucky’s a professional and Natasha’s on her way. He’ll be fine. We need to focus on the job at hand. If we don’t need to find Pierce, that makes our job a lot easier. The faster we get this done, the faster we can get over there if they need us.”

Shaking his head, as though to clear his thoughts, Steve nods, “Right, you’re right. I think we should be good to go in half an hour. We’re backing up all the data here and we’ll extract and analyse it in SHIELD. I need to head up though, there’s one progress report I’m missing.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a pretty minor piece of data and I think it was a new kid working on that extraction. I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s taking this long. I was fairly useless for my first case. You stay here and keep us updated about what’s happening.”

Steve waves off his concerns and moves away from the system. Clint’s momentarily distracted by the string of numbers on the screen, when there’s a burst of static from his earpiece.

“Barton do you copy?”

Natasha sounds tense.

“Yup. Is it about Barnes? I heard about that already.”

“You may have a slightly bigger problem on your hands. We can account for almost everyone here except for Skull. We’ve searched everywhere for him, but there’s no sign of him anywhere. He’s supposed to have made a drop-off at Pierce’s residence about two hours ago.”

“You don’t think he’s still here? Wait a minute...” He thinks about what Steve had said and the fact that he’s still not back.

“I’m going to need to get back to you on that Nat. We might have a situation.”

* * *

 

“You look surprised boy.” Pierce says, smirking at Bucky. “Did you really think that I wouldn’t recognise you? After all the investment we made in that initial project, not to mention the amount of trouble you gave us when you escaped. Oh, I’ll never forget you. You’re working for SHIELD now are you? Is this your form of redemption? How cute. Do they know who you are? How you were once one of the most feared stone-cold killers in HYDRA? Or do you pretend that you’re an innocent little lamb that never hurt anyone?”

Bucky shifts his grip on the gun. “They know exactly who I was Pierce. And I’m making amends for what you made me do, all those years ago.”

The man throws his head back and laughs. “What I made you do? Can you prove that, I wonder? Because you know what anyone will see, when they look at those tapes? They’ll see you, holding the gun, killing all those people in cold blood. There’s no redemption for you, there’s too much red in your ledger. You can’t just erase it that easily. And besides,” he says, raising his gun, “Those deaths were so insignificant. No one cares about them.”

He begins to pull the trigger and Bucky readies himself to fire his own weapon.

Two loud bangs echo in the clearing and after a brief pause, two figures fall to the ground.

* * *

 

Clint ascends the steps slowly, keeping his own weapon ready. He tenses when he notices the agents who have been knocked out in front of the door leading to the study.  One or two of them are bleeding and Clint scans the area for Steve. He can’t see him anywhere.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can make out shadows from beneath the study door. Coulson had always told him that he would be able to sneak up on Santa if he tried hard enough. Now was probably the time to put that theory to the test. He slides the door open quietly, stopping it just before it creaks and lifts his bow. There’s an arrow rigged with an electric stun mechanism at the ready.

In front of him Skull’s got Steve at gun point. One of the younger agents is on the floor and he’s bleeding profusely from his head. Steve himself has a worryingly large gash above his eyebrow and he swears internally when he hears what Skull is asking Steve.

“Look it can’t be done,” Steve says angrily, his eyes unfocused, “I can’t figure out how to make the serum work. I don’t know anything about the serum. And even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to use a computer to smoothen things out for you.”

That’s apparently the wrong answer because Skull growls and raises his weapon threateningly.

He slumps down to the ground before he can make another move. Clint waves his empty bow at Steve and grins, “Next time, accept the escort.” Steve tries to grin back but wobbles and Clint rushes forward to catch him.

“We’re going to need a medical team down here,” he says into his transmitter.

He waits for a second before his eyes widen and he looks at Steve, his face pale.

“Ok buddy, new plan, you and me, we’re going to be heading to the Med Bay, two days ago.”

“What? We can’t just do that. The other agents are more injured than I am, and besides we’re in charge here.”

“Don’t worry about that, that’s why we have a chain of command. And there’s a medical team with an ETA of less than five minutes. Trust me when I say we need to go.”

“Clint, are you going to tell me what happened or not?”

“I just got word from Natasha,” he darts his eyes away, “Bucky’s been evacuated. He’s been hit pretty badly.”

All at once, Steve feels his world slip away from beneath him.

* * *

 

There a lot of line breaks in this chapter because I'm jumping between scenes a lot, because theoretically, all the events are occurring at the same time. I hope that makes it a little clearer to read.

I have a tumblr, where I basically reblog images of  food and puppies because why not. Come say [hi!](everydayindian.tumblr.com)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Bruce is alive!   
> There's some fairly shoddy cyber forensics in this chapter which is pulled from my vague memories of classes a couple of years ago. Also, the electro gun thing, I don't actually know if it exists. I know you can have a stun gun, but I don't know if it's physically possible to fire a bullet that would then stun you, but let's pretend this world's science is a lot more advanced than ours?
> 
> Thank you so much to all the lovely people who've been reading this, leaving kudos and comments and in general being awesome! You've made a terrible week so much more bearable :) 
> 
> There might be less updates this week because I'll be travelling on Thursday.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter! Comments are always appreciated and help me know what to improve! (they also make me smile like a dodo when I see them)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings for mentions of violence*
> 
> *Less serious warnings for my crappy attempts at humour*

_His dreams are loud and he hates it. In his dreams the streets run red and people stare at him with soulless black eyes. He knows the people that stare back at him, even though he wishes he doesn’t. It’s like he had mentioned to a SHIELD psychiatrist once, you never forget the faces of the people that you’ve killed._

Steve clutches Bucky’s hand tightly in his own and watches him closely for any sign of movement. He’s been here for the better part of the week after he had been bandaged up himself and refused to move despite what the nurses protested about. Between Clint and Natasha, they’d made sure that he had been eating and sleeping enough to not collapse. As Natasha had put it, ‘You’re no good to him dead’.

He’d been terrified when he had seen Bucky being wheeled into surgery. He was lying still on the table, pale except for the bright red stain on his side. Steve wasn’t even sure if he was breathing.

Although he had wanted to remain outside the Operating Theatre till he was done, Clint dragged him away to get his own injuries bandaged up and to check that he didn’t have a concussion. Coulson had come in shortly later and taken one look at him before declaring that he was on immediate, week long leave, effective from now. As far as SHIELD was concerned, debrief could be carried out by other personnel, unless there was something that no one else could account for.

Natasha had come to see him a little later, once she had finished debriefing, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. He’d grimaced when he saw it, but drank it anyway. Somehow he felt like he was going to need it over the next few days.

She sat down in the hard plastic chair next to him, staring at the white doors that led to the OT and began to explain to him what had happened.

As it turned out, Bucky hadn’t fired a single bullet.

“See, with all the chaos that’s been happening recently, we lost track of Zemo. He’s very good at making himself scarce when he wants to. He slipped through the guards’ fingers and no one knew where he was. I guess what you told him made a big impression on him and he decided he wanted revenge on Pierce.”

“So are you saying he shot Pierce?” Steve asks, shocked.

“That’s what it looks like. Ballistics still needs to get back to us, but even from a glance I can tell you that the bullet that they pulled out from Pierce isn’t standard issue SHIELD fare. When and if Zemo fired at Pierce, that messed up his aim.”

“And saved Bucky’s life.”

“That’s what it looks like right now. Of course in light of things, Zemo might receive some degree of amnesty. Pierce isn’t dead either, he’ll go on public trial soon, before SHIELD locks him up for good, along with the others.”

“And what about Bucky? Is he…is he going to be ok?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Natasha says quietly, “But I will tell you, I’ve known Bucky for a long time, and he doesn’t give up easily. Coulson’s arranged for the best medical care we could get. If you asked me, I’d say that Bucky was going to pull through just fine.”

It takes another hour before the door opens and a tired looking doctor walks out. He heads over to them when he sees them seated across the corridor and smiles at them wearily, declaring that the operation had been a success.

 “The bullet just missed his aorta,” the elderly man says, “He’s very lucky that way. Thankfully, he hasn’t lost a lot of blood either, but a wound with a placement like that is bound to cause shock. We’ve extracted the projectile itself and sealed up the wound. We’re attaching him to breathing support to take some of the strain off his lungs. He’s going to be shifted to the ICU until further notice, until he stabilises completely, but I think that, he’s going to be ok. He’s a real fighter that kid.”

The doctor excuses himself and Steve sinks back into his chair with relief. Something’s niggling at the back of his mind, and before he can stop himself, he asks, “Natasha, why didn’t Bucky fire at Pierce? I know the orders he had were to bring Pierce back alive unless there were extenuating circumstances. I’m pretty sure these counted as circumstances where firing back was allowed.”

“What you go through when working for HYDRA, it’s not something that leaves you untouched. I don’t know if Bucky ever mentioned this to you, but I wasn’t always working for SHIELD myself. That’s one of the reasons that we get along so well, because I understand how these things can cling to you. When Bucky came to SHIELD, he swore to himself that this would be a new start. That as far as possible, he would never kill anyone that didn’t need to be killed. I think, in some way, that’s how he tries to redeem himself for what happened all those years ago.”

“But it wasn’t his fault!” Steve protests, “He doesn’t need redemption because he wasn’t in control of himself.”

Natasha looks at him with something soft in her eyes, and Steve lets himself imagine that its approval. “You know, Clint told me the same thing once. But, for us, we’ll always remember that we were the ones who had our hand on the trigger. We ended so many people’s lives just because of a meaningless order and we’ll never truly be sure how many people were innocent, how many of those people have families. It’s something that haunts you for the rest of your life.”

“He doesn’t deserve to go through that.” Steve says bitterly, “And neither did you.”

“No, we didn’t. But that’s the way life works, many people often receive fates that they didn’t deserve. But you’re right, even though it took me far too long to accept that, what happened isn’t our fault. And if you want to help him, keep reminding him of that. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, like he would hang stars in the night sky for you. It’s a good look on him, one I’d like to see for a long time to come.”

Bucky doesn’t wake up over the next few days although his vitals stabilise and he slowly starts getting colour back in his skin. Steve can’t be moved no matter how much the nurses protest and beg him, telling him he needs to rest. Finally, he’s persuaded (by threat of bodily removal thanks to Natasha) to at least sleep in the vacant bed next to Bucky.

During the day, he sits in an uncomfortable black plastic chair, the hard seat and back digging into his spine and making him ache uncomfortably. He occasionally gets up to take a quick walk, just enough that he won’t hurt himself but not so long that when Bucky wakes up, he’ll miss it. As the week drags by, he wonders when Bucky’s going to wake up, a feeling of panic gnawing at his insides, making him feel ill.

It’s during one of these vigils that he’s interrupted by someone unexpected.

He’s been staring at Bucky for a while now, willing him to wake up, when the door to their room opens and the scent of coffee drifts through the room. Expecting it to be Clint he doesn’t look up till the cup appears in his line of vision, held in place by a hand that is distinctly not Clint’s. Shocked, he turns to the new visitor.

“Sam?”

“When you said you had a new job, I expected something a lot different. Man Rogers, I can’t go a month without you getting yourself into a boatload of messes.”

“How did you…”

“Find out?” Sam says grinning at Steve, “I told you didn’t I? I’m actually amazing and know everything. “He pulls out another chair to sit beside Steve and laughs at his flabbergasted face. “I’m kidding man. As cool as it would be to be all-seeing and all-knowing, I am in fact a mere mortal.”

Steve groaned at Sam’s terrible humour, but he can’t help but smile. Sam’s always known how to cheer him up no matter how bad things get.

“Clint filled me in,” Sam says nonchalantly, almost as though he’s talking about the weather. When he catches Steve’s raised eyebrows he says, “What, I used to do some contract work for SHIELD at one point. Before I decided to work in the VA.”

“Is there anything else you’re hiding from me?” Steve asks wryly, “Like a secret fetish for knitting I should know about?”

“Now you listen here Rogers, what a man does in the bedroom is his own personal business and no one else’s.” Sam says, mock-outraged. He nods at Bucky and asks quietly, “How’s he doing?”

“Physically, he’s fine, his vitals have all stabilised, the bleeding’s stopped but… he’s not waking up.”

In front of Sam, he’s comfortable with admitting how freaked out he is. He confesses that’s he terrified that Bucky may not wake up and even if he does, there’s no telling what damage has been done. And there’s the question of what happens next that he needs to address.

“Were you happy with him, over the last few months?” Sam asks.

“Being married to him was the easiest thing ever, I mean, aside from when I was being shot at by HYDRA. When I was with him, it felt like I had known him my whole life.”

“I think you know the answer to what you want to do for the future then Steve.”

“But what about SHIELD? I don’t know if Bucky would ever want to leave.”

“That’s something that you can’t control. You know, when I left the army, Riley remained in the Air Force for a whole two years. It was the most terrifying two years of my life, knowing that something could happen out there, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything for him. There were plenty of times when I wanted to quit on him, on the relationship because I thought, well at least I wouldn’t be terrified of losing him all the time. But I knew that I loved him, and that I would regret it forever if I didn’t take the chance I got. Besides, let me tell you a thing about post-mission sex.”

“Oh God, Sam, no. My ears cannot deal!”

Cackling, Sam pulls Steve in for a hug and keeps him there before adding, “He’s going to be fine you know. He’ll wake up when he’s good and ready to. Just give him time. Just remember, no funny business till he’s completely healed up!”

If Steve could, he’d probably spontaneously combust.

By the time Sam leaves, he’s in a much better mood, and even the strange mystery meat that the hospital tries to pass off as chicken can’t make him feel worse.

He finishes his meal and sighs, “I wish you’d wake up soon Buck. I don’t know how much mystery meat my stomach can take.”

He squeezes Bucky’s hand lightly, prepared to hoist himself up and head out to get rid of his Styrofoam tray and wash up a bit, when he feels a light pressure squeezing back.

It shouldn’t surprise him that Bucky would regain consciousness at the mention of food.

* * *

 

“Despite what Pepper might have you believe about my commitment phobia, I don’t plan on throwing away our relationship Bruce.”

Tony’s standing in the corner, his arms crossed over his shoulders. He’s got bags under his eyes, more pronounced than usual and he’s jittery from the amount of caffeine he’s had to keep him from falling asleep. Bruce sits in the hospital bed in front of him, an IV machine hooked up to his arm, his skin still pale.

He’s been on supplements and infusions the entire week, antibiotics being pumped into him to keep him from keeling over.

When Tony had seen him, he’d turned on his heel, run to the nearest restroom and thrown up what little food he’d had in his stomach. There weren’t many things that scared Tony. Pepper was one of them. Little girls in white dresses were another.

But perhaps, what was really up there on his list was the prospect of losing Bruce, who was the only person up to this point who’d managed to really put up with him and had never abandoned him no matter how bad things got.

Tony had kept watch over him, informing the nurses about his allergies, fluffing up his pillow every now and then, sneaking in his favourite herbal tea (once his doctor had ok-ed it) and when he was awake, reading to him from his favourite science periodical. It was his way of showing Bruce that he still cared. But things were different when Bruce woke up, not that Tony hadn’t expected a bit of awkwardness. You couldn’t go through something like that and not be changed.

Bruce was quieter, more reserved and shied away from Tony during the first few days. When Tony had reached forward to brush a strand of hair away from Bruce’s forehead, he’d flinched and recoiled away from Tony. Tony had tried to keep the hurt off his face while Bruce apologised profusely. He knew it wasn’t Bruce’s fault, he could hardly blame him.

But he hadn’t expected what Bruce was saying now. Because Bruce wanted to break up with him.

“Tony, I’m not the same man that I was when I went in there.” Bruce protested weakly.

With one eye on his heart monitor, he said, “Neither was I when I came back from Afghanistan, and you never let that break us apart.”

“You heard the doctors Tony, they’re not sure how long it’s going to take for this to wear off.”

“I can handle that, **_we_** can handle that. I seem to recall that when the doctors told me that my heart was preparing to take an inopportune vacation you didn’t give up on me. You just made me take up yoga and bought me those awful spandex pants.”

“I liked those pants.” Bruce mumbled.

“Correction, you liked me in those pants. But the point being, that if you dealt with all the shit I threw at you, why wouldn’t you expect me to do the same?”

“Because Tony, no one could predict the effects of the serum. That’s why they were testing it out on so many people. Do you know what happened to me? It made me mad, and not the normal, I’m angry and I need to shout a bit. I broke a man’s neck when I got angry, when he tried to inject me with something. Snapped it with less resistance than I would have used for a toothpick.”

Tony sits down heavily then. He had to admit, he hadn’t expected that.

“Oh.” He says intelligently.

“Yeah Tony, _oh_. We don’t know how long the effects of the serum will last and even then, what if I snapped and hurt you. I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself then. Look, I’m not stable and until I am I just think we need some time away from each, if nothing else, for your own safety.”

“While I appreciate your concern over my well-being, the answer is still is no.”

“Jesus Tony, don’t be so…”

“What? Stubborn? Pig-headed. Reality check Bruce, we’ve been together for long enough for you to know that’s how I am. And I don’t plan to change. I’m fairly capable of looking after myself. We’ll talk to Coulson about it. There’s all kind of anger management therapies and classes that they have these days. All I know is, much like a yeast infection, you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

Bruce lets his head fall forward, but shuffles to the side and lets Tony cuddle up to him.

“Your analogies are the worst.” He says, but presses a kiss to Tony’s cheek, lips brushing against the coarse stubble.

* * *

 

“I hope you got the number of the truck that ran me over.” Bucky groans.

Steve chuckles weakly and wipes at his eyes.

“Aw come on, Stevie, don’t cry, I’m ok.”

“You almost died you jerk. I’m going to call the nurse, hang on.”

He presses the call button and stands to the side of the room when the nurse comes in to take a look at Bucky.

“A doctor will be in shortly to take a look at you Mr. Barnes. But I will say,” She adds cheerfully, “With any luck, you’ll be on your way home at the end of the week. I’m sure you and your husband would love to get home.”

“You’ve got no idea,” Bucky groans, grimacing when his bandage pulls. Steve clicks his tongue and moves to Bucky’s side, adjusting him and propping him up against some pillows. The nurse shakes her head fondly and leaves into the hallway, her heels clacking on the linoleum.

Flushing under the intensity of his stare, Steve fiddles with the hem of his shirt and said, “Well, we didn’t have a lot of time to tell all the medical personnel that we weren’t married and somehow it never really came up in conversation.”

“You’re not going to hear me complaining.” Bucky says softly. He slowly moves his hand, the one that doesn’t have an IV in it, towards Steve’s before stopping. It’s the one that’s scarred and Steve knows he hates so much as thinking about it. Without pausing, Steve moves his own arm forward and grabs Bucky’s hand, linking their fingers together and pressing a kiss to Bucky’s knuckles.

“I already told you jerk, I don’t care how your arm looks. You could be blue with a Santa Claus beard and I’d love you all the same.”

He freezes when he realises what he’s said. They’ve not got around to saying that they love each other, so it comes as a surprise to him too. He moves to take his hand back but this time it’s Bucky whose hand tightens around his.

“That’s certainly an interesting fetish you seem to have there.” He says, but his eyes are soft and Steve relaxes when he realises Bucky’s not freaking out.

“So what now?” Steve asks, “What happens next?”

“Well, with any luck the HYDRA trash that we’ve captured will be put away forever and they’ll never see the light of day again. There’s no way even a regular court of law would let Pierce out in public, not with the evidence that we’ve found against him.”

“I meant about us Buck.”

“I don’t know, I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s about time I started looking for greener pastures. That maybe I’m getting too old for this job you know. It might be time for me to start looking for alternate employment. And I can’t help but think that having an apartment on my own, it’d be awfully lonely you know? I’d like for us to still keep this going between the both of us, whatever this is. I’ve never had the chance to be in a steady relationship before, but at the very least, I know I’d like to try. Of course,” he adds with a grin, “I still need to come up with a suitably cheesy nickname for you.”

“Would you really stop working at SHIELD?” Steve asks. “I know how important this was to you.”

“Don’t let Natasha find out I said this, but she was right. She once told me that even though we weren’t at fault, we’d always need to find absolution. But you know what she said? She said that there was more than one way to obtain redemption, and not all of them were right. Maybe SHIELD was the first way that I found, but it wasn’t necessarily the right one.”

Before Steve can say anything else, he’s cut off by the sound of the door opening.

“Of course I was right you idiot. I thought you had learned by now that I’m usually always right.” Natasha walks in, closely followed by Clint.

The woman presses a kiss to Bucky’s forehead and Clint beams at him.

“SHIELD’s an absolute mess right now, everyone’s in a flap about the fact that Pierce was brought in. The board was trying to tell Fury how to deal with the court proceedings and he pretty much flipped out and told him that they could shove their opinions in a very uncomfortable location. It was fantastic.”

Natasha looks amused and says, “Coulson threatened to show them just how a paper clip had 100 uses. They went very quiet after that happened.”

“I’m not sure if I’m amused or terrified.” Steve says drily.

“Well Phil’s taken a liking to you, so I’d say it was safe to go with amused.” Clint says cheerfully. He picks at some of the food in the bowl they’d brought in with them and his face scrunches up when he tastes it, “Aw, no this is terrible. I miss pizza. Let’s have a pizza party to celebrate your new place.”

“What are you talking about Clint?” Steve asks and from the look of confusion on his face, he can tell that Bucky is just as confused.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she raises one delicate eyebrow and says, “Are we meant to pretend you were looking for apartments in California for fun?”

Bucky flushes bright red and Steve’s jaw drops, “You’ve been looking at apartments?”

“Wait, you mean you didn’t tell Steve?” Clint says, gnawing at a chicken leg.

“I was planning to wait till we had a chance to talk it out a bit more, and till we were surer of what we were doing. Plus it was meant to be a surprise.”

“Well, I mean, it’s still a surprise, he looks plenty surprised.” Clint offers.

“You’re lucky I find you cute,” Steve grumbles.

Bucky just squeezes his hand.

Three months later, Steve’s sealing the final box in his apartment when Bucky walks through the kitchen door, wearing a sleeveless vest and a tight fitting pair of jeans. He kisses Steve’s cheek, saying, “Kitchen’s completely clear and I’ve checked all the connections. Are these the last of the boxes?”

Steve leans against Bucky and lets some of his warmth seep into him. He can smell his distinctive cologne and he struggles not to cuddle up to him. He doesn’t want to be late after all.

“I think we’ve got everything. I’ll help you load up the boxes and then we can swing by tomorrow and make sure we didn’t miss anything. Don’t even try and argue with me, you know the doctor said you weren’t meant to be over-doing it.”

“I’m perfectly fine, I promise.”

He rolls his eyes again and presses one final kiss to Bucky’s lips, playfully swiping at him when he tries to pull Steve in for a longer kiss.

“Come on Barnes, no funny stuff. We’re going to be late.”

“Fine…I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Half an hour later, they’re in front of a familiar white door, Steve holding his mother’s frail hand, with Bucky standing right behind him. His mother smiles at the pair of them, her eyes bright Steve asks her once again if she’ll be alright with them moving away.

“You make sure you come down and visit me, that goes for the both of you. And Barnes, make sure you look after my son. I may not look it, but I can wield some serious damage with my cane.”

Bucky gives her his trademark grin and promises her he’ll look after Steve.

They stay a little longer, till her eyes start to droop. Steve gathers her up into his arms for one last hug, tears coming to his eyes as he breathes in her reassuring scent once more.

“It’s going to be alright Stevie,” she croons, and for a split second, he’s five again, struck down with a terrible bout of fever that makes him want to cry his eyes out. She smooths his hair away from his eyes and places her hands on either side of his face, pulling his head down till she can press a kiss to his forehead. “I’m so proud of you, Stevie, I love you.”

“I love you too ma.”

When he leaves, Bucky doesn’t say anything about the fact that his eyes are suspiciously wet. He wraps a strong arm around the other man’s shoulders and says, “You know, we don’t have to do this. We don’t need to leave.”

Steve wipes his eyes and takes in a deep breath before replying, “Yeah we do Buck, we both need a new start. I’m going to miss her is all.”

The drive back home is silent, his old apartment, that Bucky had moved into with him is almost empty and together they curl up on the mattress under a blanket that they need to pack tomorrow. Steve’s curled up into Bucky’s side, one arm thrown over his stomach, the other under his head. Bucky’s not asleep either, drawing meaningless patterns onto Steve’s hand.

“What do you think California’ll be like?” Steve asks Bucky softly.

Looping his ankle with Steve’s, Bucky replies, “Warmer probably, shirts will be optional during summer.”

Grinning, he says, “You have a one track mind Barnes.”

“Can you blame me? I wake up to you every morning.”

Ducking his face down to hide the flush in his face, Steve protests, “You’re the actual worst.”

Bucky kisses the top of Steve’s head and switches off the light in the room. “I am, but you love me.”

“I guess I do.” Steve says, kissing Bucky’s collarbone lightly.

“I suppose it’s a good thing that I love you too.”

“I suppose it is.”

 

* * *

 

I have a tumblr! Come say [hi!](http://everydayindian.tumblr.com/) We can talk about puppies, food and pretend to have our shit together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is more or less where the story ends. There is going to be an epilogue, which should be up over the weekend. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Thank you to everyone who commented on, left kudos on or read the previous chapters, you all made me so happy!


	11. Chapter 11 - Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The happy ending that they deserve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I vanished for so long! I've explained it a bit more in the end notes, but to sum up, I was working on postgrad thesis (But I still write fanfiction because why not).
> 
> This is the last chapter from this arc! I hope you enjoy it!

**Epilogue**

He hums along to the song on the radio, it’s some ridiculous peppy number that he can’t name even if he wanted to, the kind which clings to your subconscious no matter how hard you try to prevent it. To be entirely honest, Steve’s not sure how he heard it, although he’s willing to place a bet on the idea that it was Bucky’s fault.

His husband always had the strangest taste in music.

Almost as though he’s summoned by thoughts about him, the kitchen door creaks open and Bucky bounds in, beaming at Steve, Carter trotting in behind him. Steve groans when he catches sight of the mud caked on Carter’s paws.

‘Bucky, no, I thought we were trying to keep him out of the flower beds!’

Laughing, Bucky pulls out a worn out towel from behind the door, the purple paw prints on them fading with use, and dampens it. Crouching down, he beams at the over-excitable retriever that immediately attempts to slobber all over his face. As he gently wipes at Carter’s paws, he replies to Steve, ‘Well, the key word there is _trying_. Carter is a force to be reckoned with I hope you realise. But I have rescued our plants from this ferocious beast.’ He purposely exaggerates the last line with emphasis and waggles his eyebrows, causing Steve to crack up.

‘My hero,’ he says drily, ‘However will I repay you for your hard work and dedication.’

Standing up, he presses Steve to the counter and smirks, ‘Well, I mean, I can come up with a few things that might, _just might_ , be a suitable reward.’

Steve relaxes into the kiss for a few seconds, letting his free hand loop around Bucky’s waist and grip onto the back of his soft sweatshirt, before pulling away. ‘Unless you want to starve, I need to get on with breakfast.’ He pecks Bucky’s cheek in amusement, noting the pout on his face.

‘Sam, Tony and the others are coming over for breakfast, you have only yourself to blame. You invited them over.’

With mock irritation, Bucky scowls and says, ‘This is why I said you shouldn’t let me make decisions about socialising, I have terrible ideas.’

‘They’re our friends and you’re not fooling anyone you big softie, I know you love them. Now honestly, can you help me by setting the table? And make sure this time, no knives near Natasha, no spillable liquids near Clint and please, for the love of all things holy, _keep Tony away from our tea kettle_. And clock. And anything else even remotely electronic. We’re supposed to be trying to keep a low profile here, not alert the National Guard.’

As the taller man leaves, Carter follows him, occasionally bumping into the backs of his knees. Steve shakes his head fondly at the pair. As he reaches up to retrieve the packet of flour they’d stored in one of the higher shelves, his wedding ring glints and he’s struck, not for the first time at how lucky he’s been.

Moving to California hadn’t been easy on any account. They’d had to start an entirely new life, and keep under the radar. With the dismantling of HYDRA’s top brass, there were plenty of people out for the team’s blood. It had been hard for the two of them, Bucky especially, to give up their jobs at SHIELD. For Bucky, that was what he had known for the greater part of his current life, he had floundered for a while as he tried to find new purpose.

Their first new home was a tiny run-down apartment on the west coast, just somewhere they could rest their heads until they were able to set up a house for themselves. Steve recalled all too clearly the nightmares Bucky would get, increasing in frequency because of the stress. He’d woken up one night to find Bucky on the window ledge, twirling his old pocket knife, with a vacant expression on his face. It hadn’t taken much convincing after that for him to start talking to Sam, and that’s helped a lot. The nightmares, although not gone completely, are less.

They’d found a house, a small, tidy place with two floors and a garden. Steve had fallen in love with it the moment he’d set foot inside, and Bucky had grinned at Natasha (who had somehow found this gem).

It takes a few months for them to settle down, for Bucky to stop being so suspicious of everyone ( _Steve knows he’s still suspicious, but he lets it slide. Old habits die-hard after all_ ). Steve gets a job as an illustrator, making graphic designs for commissions. His latest piece was a design for a bakery run by elderly women that, to no one’s surprise, coo over Steve and usher him inside, plying him with cakes and pie. Bucky gets a job as a mechanic ( _Tony can’t stop laughing when he hears that. But once he stops laughing, he hugs Bucky and tells him very seriously, that if there’s anything he ever wants to learn, anything at all, Tony’ll only ever be a phone call away. Then the moment is over and Tony asks him if he wants a turbo charged dildo._ )

Months of settling down seem to be thrown into a loop when Steve gets a call from Sam. Sarah’s gotten much worse, he says, the doctors don’t know how long she’ll be able to hold out. He’s almost inconsolable and he and Bucky ( _There’s no way I’m letting you deal with this alone Rogers, don’t be stupid_ ) end up in Sarah’s room in less than a day. His mother is pale to the point he can see his veins through her skin and she rambles, her mind consumed by fever, unable to recognise Steve.

Devastated, he tries to tell Bucky to call Dr. Erskine, maybe the serum can help her. Bucky bites his lip but calls the elderly man, who tells him exactly what he had feared. The serum can do amazing things, but it can’t fix something like this.

Sarah spends the next few hours in a delirium and amongst her thoughts, she believes that Steve is her late Joseph. Steve lets her. If he can give her just a moment of peace she will.

The fever breaks that morning and Sarah looks radiant, running her hands through Steve’s hair. She tells him she’s never been so proud of him and that’s she so happy that he’s finally found himself a home. She tells him that she loves him and that she’ll always watch over him. She tells Bucky that she’s glad Steve found someone as stubborn and hot-headed as himself and begs him to look after her son.

When she passes on, Steve doesn’t speak for a week.

He holds Bucky’s hand through the funeral, clutching it as tight as he can, as though scared that if he doesn’t, Bucky will disappear too.

They frame the photo of Steve and Sarah, and a new one that they had taken later, with Steve, Bucky and Sarah on a rare trip she had taken out of the senior centre to the seaside. The photos are hung up in their living room, right next to the window, like Sarah had wanted ( _So I can look outside at the garden_ ).

And boy do they have a garden.

While Steve cooks and bakes when he’s free, Bucky takes to gardening. It relaxes him, he finds, there’s something about the heady smell of damp soil and the joy of seeing new life around him that makes him glow. Before long, they have a veritable army of plants, from colourful flowers to fresh vegetables. Bucky’s found his niche.

As they settle down and move on, some of their friends begin to follow them.

Tony and Bruce are the first.

Although Tony still works as an independent contractor for SHIELD, Bruce has long since retired. It had taken almost two months for the effects of the serum to wear off but by the time they had, Bruce had known that there was no way he wanted to remain in such a stressful job. He’d decided to search for a job as a professor, something that he’d initially been training to do.

If you asked Bruce, he’d flush and embarrassedly say that he was fortunate to land a teaching position at a prestigious university in California.

If you asked Tony ( _and sometimes, even if you didn’t ask him_ ) he’d tell you that with his skills and expertise, Bruce had a pick of different universities, each vying for his time. It had been easy for him to find a suitable job and even though he had barely started working, the students loved him and the university board was already considering converting his part-time job to a full-time post.

No, as Tony would say, it was the _college_ that was fortunate to get Bruce.

Tony had finally begun to look after himself and slow down. After the mission, he’d pushed himself to beyond the breaking point, forcing himself to juggle his job and his family life. The pressure had gotten worse and worse and at one point, Bruce, noticing the almost consistent headaches Tony was getting had begged him to visit a doctor.

They’d found that his blood pressure was dangerously high.

The prospect of having to slow down terrified Tony, but Bruce had managed to help him through it. ( _There were yoga pants and tea involved and that’s all I’ll say about the matter_ ).

The pair now live a few streets away from Steve and Bucky and visit frequently. Steve can barely remember a time when his appliances weren’t sentient.

About a month ago, Steve had been surprised when the doorbell had rung, fairly late in the night. He’d been even more surprised when Bucky had asked him to get it. Bucky was still cautious about unannounced visitors, especially those who showed up when the sun went down. But when he opened the door to find Sam and Riley standing there, he was speechless.

He’d almost crushed Sam with the force of his hug, choking down a sob even when Sam had cheerfully greeted him with a, “Surprise Spangles!”

If he ignores Bucky’s raised eyebrows it’s no one’s business but their own.

Sam’s got a job at the local VA and he and Riley have decided to make the move. It’d been something they’d been thinking about for years, Sam admits. But his old contracts with SHIELD, not to mention the fact that Steve and Sarah had needed him, those obligations had kept them from moving. ( _Don’t you dare apologize Rogers, you know there’s no way I’d have done it if I didn’t want to. You and Sarah were family and that’s all there was to it. I don’t let family suffer when there’s something I can do about it_ ).

The only ones who were left out of their seemingly mass migration were Natasha and Clint. The pair still worked for the main SHIELD office in Brooklyn, but still found time to visit the west coast at least twice a month. Natasha called Bucky on a regular basis, Steve knew it was her because Bucky switched to Russian on those calls.

But he had Clint to thank for Carter.

Clint had dropped by one day, without Natasha, cradling a scruffy looking puppy in one hand. Steve had taken one look at him and dragged him in, telling him to get into the shower and that if the bleeding on his shoulder didn’t slow down soon they were going to a hospital. Clint had grumbled but had placed the fur ball into Steve’s arms and trudged to their shower.

When he comes back, looking significantly cleaner and less likely to collapse from blood loss, he plops down on the ground ( _No offense pal, but Barnes will kill me if I get blood stains on the sofa again_ ) and lets Steve dress his wounds. He explains that during their latest raid he’d heard a strange scratching noise from a crumpled looking cardboard box. When he’d opened it, he’d found this puppy and as much as he wanted it, they already had Lucky.

“But I couldn’t just abandon it,” he explains, “He’s a poor defenceless little peanut.”

The poor thing shivers in Steve’s arms, although he thinks it’s more out of fear, because he’s wrapped it in spare clothes and wiped off the worst of the grime. Later, as he coaxes it to nibble on some bread and lap up some water, he realises that one of its legs is weaker than the others. The puppy meekly licks Steve’s fingers before limping back to its den of blankets.

Steve’s sold and he knows it.

When Bucky comes home later that evening, he’s met by not one but two pairs of large puppy-eyes ( _Clint, we’ve been working together for years, yes I am completely immune to your sad looks by now, don’t make me call Natasha_ ).

And that’s how they end up with Carter.

Bucky starts going to counselling sessions at the VA and he starts taking Carter out for walks every morning. Slowly, he laughs more and more and the nightmares become less. He starts letting himself have fun, enjoying the moment. Steve’s amused when he comes home to his boyfriend lounging on the sofa, Carter curled up at his feet, sipping a strange green concoction as he watches a terrible reality show.

The first time Bucky decides to wear a sleeveless shirt in front of their friends, it’s in the middle of a heat wave in summer. Bucky had spent the last few days complaining that he was melting and Steve had humoured him, buying tubs of ice-cream and making cold smoothies. He feels like there’s something more that Bucky wants to suggest, but he can’t quite figure out what. He’s learned though, that Bucky will talk when he’s good and ready, so he doesn’t push.

The evening before their friends are due to stop by, Bucky lazily traces meaningless patterns on Steve’s chest, both of them shirtless in the heat. Steve gently smoothens out the furrow in his brow and says softly, “Something on your mind Buck?”

“Just thinking,” he says absentmindedly. His fingers still, before resuming their tracing, and Steve notes that they’re more determined, a sure sign that something’s troubling Bucky.

“You know you can talk to me about anything,” he says.

“I know, it’s just…well, it’s been really hot and the heat and sweat’s been making my shirts stick to my arm. It’s nothing terrible,” he adds hastily, noting the concerned look on Steve’s face, “It’s just, starting to irritate the skin is all. But I was wondering, I mean, do you think the others would mind, if I…”

“If you what?” Steve presses, getting an idea where this might be heading.

“If I didn’t cover my arm tomorrow.”

Steve surges forward, and almost knocks a couple of Bucky’s teeth out as he kisses every part of Bucky’s face he can come in contact with.

‘I actually need my teeth,’ Bucky says amused, but he’s got a soft look in his eyes that means he knows exactly what Steve’s thinking.

‘If you ruin the mood with a conversation about food, Bucky, I swear…’

‘Food’s the last thing on my mind, I can think of a few other reasons why I might need teeth.’ He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and Steve flushes, ‘You have a one-track mind,’ he grumbles, but in reality, he’s not annoyed. He loves the fact that Bucky’s this relaxed, this comfortable making silly jokes around him.

The next day had been an adventure in patience, with Bucky being so nervous, he’d walked out of their room with his shorts inside out and wearing mismatched socks for a reason that no one could fathom. He’d tried to help Steve make dinner for that night but had dropped a plate, tried to stir the pasta sauce with a knife and almost poured in icing sugar instead of salt. Steve had hugged him and told him firmly that he could take Carter out for a walk.

That evening, when he walks out, he clutches Steve’s hand. The room goes silent for a few seconds when the others catch sight of his arm, but Natasha almost immediately restarts the conversation. If Bucky almost clings to Steve and doesn’t leave his side, and Steve keeps his hand in Bucky’s the whole night, running his free hand up and down the other’s back, no one mentions it. Bucky’s quieter that evening, but no one forces him into conversation. Before they leave, Natasha squeezes him tight and whispers something to him in Russian that makes Bucky smile.

After that, it becomes a regular occurrence to see Bucky wearing a greater variety of outfits and soon, he’s trying out new things like looping scarves and tight jeans that make Steve want to lie down.

About a year after they’ve moved in together, Bucky proposes. It’s not something terribly big, Bucky knows that Steve’s not one for fancy ceremonies and he still doesn’t like large crowds of people. He asks Steve in their own home, on a sunny summer evening after they’ve finished dinner and they’re stretched out on the sofa in the living room, tangled up in each other. Steve’s got his head on Bucky’s lap and he’s stroking Carter, who’s flopped down at Bucky’s feet.

Bucky’s reading a book, but his mind is a million miles away, internally only focussing on what’s going to happen next.

When he hasn’t turned the page of his book for almost ten minutes, Steve asks him if he’s alright. Shaking himself out of his reverie, he tries to smile down at Steve, but some of his initial concern must read through on his face and Steve starts to get up.

‘So uh, it’s nothing serious. Well it is serious, just not in a bad way.’

‘Bucky, what are you talking about?’ Steve asks, confused.

‘Well, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’ Bucky says nervously.

‘I’m listening.’ Steve reassures him.

Taking a deep breath, he decides to wing it. He’d had a huge speech planned out, but with the way his nerves were panning out, he couldn’t remember anything he had planned to say.

He discreetly rubs a hand over his pyjama pants; he can feel the hard edges of the ring box in his pocket, the weight grounding him. Sliding Steve’s head of his lap, he slips down to the ground, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Carter.

‘We’ve been together for a while, and it’s been the best year of my life. I know we’ve had our ups and downs, but before I met you, I don’t think I could ever imagine a future that didn’t involve me endlessly trying to reconcile my actions. I used to struggle every day to do basic things, like remember to eat three meals a day, because there were so many days when I didn’t think I deserved it. But thanks to you, for the first time, I’m starting to forgive myself and I’ve moved on. I’ve started to see a future for myself.’

Steve’s eyes have gone misty, ‘Buck…what are you saying?’ He sounds suspiciously croaky, and Bucky suspects that he’s caught on.

‘The thing about that future, Stevie, is that in every possible situation I imagine, you’re in it. I can’t imagine a future where I don’t spend my life with you. And that’s why I want to ask you, Steven Grant Rogers, will you spend the rest of your life with me? Will you marry me?’

He gets onto his knee and pulls out the ring box, opening it. It’s a simple band, something practical that Steve would appreciate and that Bucky had immediately been drawn to.

It doesn’t even take a second for Steve to accept.

The ceremony is small, with mostly their close friends. Sam is Steve’s best man and Natasha is Bucky’s. Tony is in charge of the venue and he surprises them all by ensuring that it’s tastefully done with no sentient appliances shooting out laser beams. Bucky’s father refuses to come, but his mother and sister, Rebecca, attend. His mother hugs him after the wedding, welcomes him to the family, while Rebecca cracks silly jokes with her brother, and elbows him to dance with Steve.

They’ve talked about children, but they’ve both agreed that right now, they need more stability in their lives before bringing a child into it. But that doesn’t stop Steve from looking longingly at ads that he sees on TV and lingering just a little longer in front of the baby store in the mall.

* * *

 

Arms wrapping around his waist pulls him from his musings.

‘Thought you said you were going to make breakfast’. Bucky says into Steve’s neck, pressing a dry kiss there.

‘Got distracted.’ He responds, shifting a bit so he can lean back into his husband’s arms.

‘By what?’

‘Just thinking how lucky I am.’

Bucky’s arms tighten around his waist briefly, before he says quietly, ‘I think we both got really lucky.’

‘I’ll give you that one.’ Shaking his head, Steve adds, ‘Did you finish setting the table?’

‘Almost, I came back for a few extra forks.’ He picks up the mentioned utensils, kisses Steve’s cheek again before heading out.

It doesn’t take long before the kitchen is full of the smell of pancakes and sizzling bacon. He’s just about finished the last pancake when the doorbell rings. He’s willing to bet that it’s Natasha and Clint. Natasha has an amazing way of always being exactly on time, no matter what. Bucky heads to answer the door and Carter barks excitedly and bounds along with him.

After a few minutes, Sam and Riley arrive, Sam bringing a box of tea that Steve’s been looking for. Sam immediately veers into the kitchen to discuss something about a show he’s been watching and Riley heads into the dining room to discuss the game with Bucky and Natasha. ( _Clint has settled on the ground and is rubbing Carter’s stomach. Carter’s more than happy with this arrangement and Steve knows the dog will follow Clint around the house the whole time he’s over_ ).

Tony and Bruce arrive last, but that’s not unusual. Tony’s not a morning person, no matter how hard he tries to be and Bruce usually stays up late grading papers.

At breakfast, Tony waves his hands wildly as he explains his new invention and Bruce sighs fondly as he makes sure Tony doesn’t knock anything over. Clint gets Tony to explain his ideas more while Bucky looks on interestedly adding in a few points now and then.

Sam asks Steve with a very straight face if he’s used the apron he got for his last birthday and Steve can’t stop the flush on his face as he admits he has.

Natasha grins like the cat that got the canary and asks, ‘What apron?’

Beaming innocently, Sam explains that he’d got a perfectly lovely apron for Steve as a house-warming gift, which may or may not have a slightly more adult version of the catchphrase ‘ **Kiss the Cook** ’.

‘Wait a minute’, Clint says, blinking, ‘I didn’t see any apron in the kitchen.’

Steve can feel his cheeks burning and Riley bursts out laughing.

‘Now Sam,’ Bucky says mock seriously, ‘What a man does in the bedroom in his own business and no one else’s.’

Sam pretends to be horrified, but he can’t stop the huge grin on his face, while Tony cackles in the background. Carter, not understanding what was going on, but wanting to be part of the excitement, barks and puts his head on Steve’s lap, wagging his tail wildly.

Burying his head in his arms, Steve groans, ‘I hate you all.’

But even he’s smiling.

After breakfast, they’re all curled up in their living room, playing some strange game that Bruce had found. Steve’s not entirely sure if anyone’s actually understood the game or the rules, but it’s too much fun for any of them to care.

He leans into Bucky’s side contentedly and sighs happily when his husband tightens his arm around his waist, kissing the top of his head before yelling at Tony to ‘Put the alien pod down.’

He can safely say, this is the happiest he’s ever been.

* * *

I'm on [tumblr!](http://everydayindian.tumblr.com/) Come say hi and look at pictures of adorable dogs with me!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To start off with, I'm so sorry I wasn't writing for so long! Essentially, I needed to submit my thesis pretty early so I was busy with that. I can't promise regular updates for a bit (I'm travelling next week) but I will be certainly trying to update some of my other fics.
> 
> This is the end of this story (and I'm sort of disappointed because I got really attached to this work). Thank you to everyone who read/commented/left kudos for this story! You've made me extremely happy!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this last chapter! Comments always help me improve ^^

**Author's Note:**

> More Stucky? At this point, I can't even pretend I have an excuse. I just thought, 'What if they were all James Bond-like spies?" and this was born.


End file.
